Battle Royale, Maine
by Technomad
Summary: What if Stephen King had written Battle Royale? This crossover shows how it might have been if Carrie White's classmates had been selected for the Program. Matinicus Island, Maine is the venue. Only one survives! Set before Carrie.
1. Chapter 1 Matinicus Island

Battle Royale-Maine

Chapter 01-Matinicus Island

May 1, 1975

Tommy Ross groaned. He hadn't felt this bad since the time he and some of his friends had copped themselves a gallon of Thunderbird and finished it off, down in the family rec room when his folks had been gone for the night. _What the hell happened? Where am I_? Reluctantly, his eyes opened.

He was seated in a folding chair, the kind with a desk attached to it. His head had been resting on the desk. Around him, he could see and hear his classmates, moaning and retching as consciousness returned.

"Hey-what the hell?"

"Where are we?"

"What's going on?"

He felt something itching on his neck, and automatically brought up his hand to scratch it. To his surprise, he found that he was wearing a strange metal collar around his neck. He looked to left and right, and saw that all of his classmates were wearing the same sort of collars.

"Good morning, all!" The voice was familiar, and he looked up to the front of the room. Standing there, flanked by a couple of Maine State Police troopers with CAR-15 carbines, was Miss Desjardin, the perky girl's phys-ed teacher. Tommy and his friends had always privately considered her one of the hottest older babes they'd ever seen, but at the moment, he could not see her as an attractive woman. All he felt was a sickening fear. He had a terrible suspicion about the situation that he and his classmates were in.

"I _do_ hope you're all feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!" carolled Miss Desjardin. "We've got a very exciting few days planned for you, and it'd be best to wipe the cobwebs out of your heads!"

That reminded Tommy-_how did they get there in the first place?_ The last thing he remembered was some sort of state-sponsored inoculation program; the whole school had been getting shots. He had gone on into the nurse's office, after waiting in line-and the last thing he remembered was the needle going in. _Had that been how-?_

People were definitely recovering, Tommy saw. Everybody was awake, and staring at Miss Desjardin like she was a ghost. He sat back and waited for developments, and sure enough, the reigning Queen Bee (which, in Tommy's mind, stood appropriately enough, for "bitch,") Chris Hargensen, stood up and shouted: "What is this and why are we here?"

Miss Desjardin gave Chris a warm smile. "Why, darling, I thought that you could figure it out for yourselves! You lucky children have been selected for the Program this year!"

The Program. Tommy felt like ice had been put down his back. Every year, every state randomly selected one class of ninth-grade students, put them in some isolated location, and they were forced to fight each other until only one survivor remained. The name of the Program had cut through the murmuring, and now everybody was sitting there in terrified silence.

Chris Hargensen was the first to recover. She stood up and screamed: "You can't do this to me! You can't! My father's a lawyer, and…" She started toward Miss Desjardin, and the troopers raised their carbines and pointed them at her.

"If you don't shut the _fuck _up and _sit down_, you spoiled, snotty little _whore_, you won't have to-these men will shoot you right down where you stand!" Miss Desjardin' voice was filled with gloating anticipation. "I might just have them do it anyway. God knows, you have it coming if anybody does!"

Chris was spoiled and cruel and unpleasant, but she was far from stupid. She sat down quickly, blanching as though she was seasick. Someone-Tommy couldn't tell who-was crying quietly. Miss Desjardin went on, as though it were an ordinary day at school: "For your information, we are on Matinicus Island. The whole island's been evacuated; the local people were happy to loan their homes for the use of the Program. We have a training video for you to watch, so watch it carefully. Watch it as though your lives depend on this information." She smiled happily. "Because they do!"

A screen was lowered by one of the troopers, and the lights went off. A light hit the screen, and then resolved into a picture of a perky girl wearing a sort of military uniform. "Hello!" chirped the girl. "So good to see you all here! Shall I explain the situation?" Not waiting to receive approval, the girl turned to an animated map. "This is the island you are on. It is called Matinicus Island, and is about twenty-five kilometers off the Maine coast. It's much too far to swim, and the water's very cold this time of year. So don't try anything stupid!" She gave them all a gleaming smile.

Tommy Ross knew where Matinicus Island was. He knew that it was a good long way from the mainland. Regretfully, he abandoned his half-formed plan to swim for it.

"In any case," the girl went on, "the waters around here are patrolled, and those collars you're wearing can be tracked. If we catch you in the water-BOOM!" She giggled. "Oh, did I forget to mention it? The collars are rigged with plastique explosive. If someone unauthorized-like, say, one of you-tries to remove the collar, it goes off! It has other uses, too!" All of a sudden, she was replaced by a map of the island, divided into squares by lines. "The whole island's been divided into zones, ranging from A-1, up in the northwesternmost corner, down to H-6, down in the southeast. Every morning, noon, evening and midnight, we'll be randomly selecting 'danger zones.' Anybody in one of those zones has five minutes after the announcement to evacuate the zone. Afterwards-BOOM!" The map disappeared, and the girl was back. "Won't that be _fun_?"

"Fun-as in funeral." Tommy couldn't see who had said it, but he'd have bet it was George Dawson. George had always been kind of the class clown.

On the screen, the girl had produced a sports bag. "Every one of you will be issued a bag, just like this one. The bags contain a supply of food, and water-the water mains have been shut off, as have the electrical supplies, for the duration of the Program. You will also find something else. Most of you will get a weapon-some of you will get a surprise. As for who gets what-that's up to random chance. Let's see what's in _this_ bag!" She reached in, like Jack Horner with a pie, and pulled out a pistol. "The weapons range from guns, like this one, to knives, to other things. As for the surprises-those could be _anything_!"

Tommy felt sick to his stomach. Like everybody else, he knew all about the Program; it was one of the most popular television shows on the air. However, it had always been something far away-something that happened to other people. Finding himself, and his friends, in it was every nightmare he had ever had come to life, times ten.

On the screen, the girl was winding up her instructions. "If nobody is killed in twenty-four hours, everybody's collar gets set off at once! That would make me very sad. You wouldn't want to make me sad, would you?" She twisted her mouth down in a satiric moue for a second, before returning to her perky, cheerful style. Tommy found that he was quite able to control his sympathy for her. _If you're so damn enthusiastic about this filthy game, bitch, put on a collar, come out, and play!_ he thought savagely.

The film was winding up. "We'll be announcing the danger zones, and who's been killed, every morning at nine, noon, evening at five, and midnight. Keep alert, and good luck to all of you!" With that, the film came to an end, and the lights came back on.

Miss Desjardin looked around. "Oh, dear, it looks like a couple of our contestants didn't want to play! They sneaked out during the film! I guess they thought they might be able to get away!" A sharp crack sounded, then, a few seconds later, another one. "I guess they were wrong!"

Several Maine State Police troopers hauled a couple of bleeding, slumped bodies into the room, dumping them unceremoniously on the floor in front of everybody. Tommy felt his stomach turn over. Miss Desjardin cooed: "Oh, _look_, it's Billy deLois and Henry Trennant! I guess they've cut class for the last time ever! Oh, well-no big loss!" She smiled warmly. "That does mean that the odds between boys and girls are even now! I should mention, boys, that girls can and do win this game, so don't discount your female classmates." Suddenly, there was a grim undertone in her voice. "This game is all about equality. Anybody can win. Anybody-no matter who their father is, no matter who they are-can be picked to play."

She picked up a bag. "So-that's about it. We're in the town hall here, and after the last of you leave, we'll be leaving too-we're going to be monitoring you, but from offshore. You can use any of the buildings, but don't get too comfortable there-you might miss a danger zone warning, and that would be just too bad, now _wouldn't_ it? You'll leave at two-minute intervals. Good luck—and do enjoy yourselves!"

(_Author's Note: Fans of _Battle Royale_ and _Carrie _will note that I am taking liberties with both source texts. The relationships between characters as presented here are based on the book, which is set a few years after the year in which this story is set. I know that the relationship picture would have changed, but I am going with the ones I found in the book. Miss Desjardin was also in her first year of teaching in the 1978-1979 school year, but I thought it would be a cool idea to bring her in early, since she does play a pivotal role in the original book. As for _Battle Royale_-I am working from the book, movie and manga, depending on what works best._)


	2. Chapter 2 The Flight of the Queen Bee

Battle Royale, Maine—Flight of the Queen Bee

by Technomad

Christine Hargensen ran as she had never run in her life. She had the bag she had been issued slung over her back, but it slowed her down not at all. Her breath rasped in and out, and she felt a terrible pain in one side, but she didn't slow down until she had gained the shelter of the pine trees that covered much of Matinicus Island.

When she had finally come to a place where she wasn't visible, she collapsed, sobbing. _Daddy---where are you?_ rang through her mind. For the first time in her life, she was in a situation where her father couldn't help her, and she didn't like it one little bit. She looked around herself, shivering in fear. She couldn't hear anybody, and there was fog rolling in, so she was fairly safe from being seen, at least for the moment.

Her stomach rumbled, and she remembered that she hadn't eaten anything that day. She was on a diet---but that didn't matter now, did it? She smiled to herself. _This "Program" thing might have its good side!_ She dieted religiously, not wanting to get all bloated and puffy like _some_ girls---but she was a healthy, growing girl with a healthy appetite, and it was always a struggle to avoid temptation.

She dug into her bag, pulling out a package of bread and a bottle of spring water. The bread tasted like it was half made out of sawdust, but with the water, it went down, and the nagging empty feeling in her stomach subsided.

She had felt something else in there, and when she had temporarily satisfied her hunger, she looked inside. She found that she'd been issued a Police Special revolver in .38 caliber, and a hundred rounds of ammunition in boxes. _Better than some things, I guess…_She knew that some of the participants in the Program got useless surprises of one sort or another, and she was glad that she'd received a useable weapon.

She had had enough experience with firearms, thanks to her father, to be able to load the pistol easily. Once it was loaded, its weight was as comforting in her hand as a teddy bear on a cold dark night. She peered around, to little avail. The fog was getting thicker and thicker. Anything could be out there. For the moment, she decided, she would stay precisely where she was.

Not far away, she heard running footsteps. She held very still, trusting to the bushes and the fog to keep her hidden, her eyes sweeping around for any sign of motion. She heard a body crashing through the bushes; from what she could hear, whoever it was wasn't headed in her direction, so she stayed quiet.

The footsteps stopped. Chris could hear heavy breathing, not far away. Then, she heard voices.

"Oh, thank God, it's you! I thought---I thought you were playing!" That was George Dawson. "It's good to see a friendly face, Frieda!"

"It's good to see you, too, George," Frieda answered. Chris shivered at how close she'd come to stumbling across the other girl, unprepared. She and Frieda Jason had a history of not getting along, and if she'd run slap into the other girl, she could have been killed before she knew what had hit her. That is, of course, if Frieda had a weapon---and the will to use it.

"What did they give you for a weapon, George?" asked Frieda.

"This." A rustling sound. "I lucked out---I got this pistol."

"Really? All I got was an Army knife. Do you think we should team up?"

"Sounds good to me, Frieda. It'll be nice to have someone beside me I can trust."

"We'll do it that way, then. Between us, we should be able to find a way off this island."

Chris smiled sourly to herself. While she was an indifferent student, she was far from stupid. Confronted with the situation of being in the Program, she could easily see the only solution. There was no escape save through victory, so that just meant that she had to win. Once she came to that conclusion, she began to analyze how best to go about it.

She knew that she had some advantages. With her looks and her sex appeal, she could lure boys in to destruction easily; most boys their age thought with the little head more than the big one, and if they believed that sex was in the offing, a smart girl could wrap them around her finger. She didn't think that the boys would be a problem, for the most part.

Girls, on the other hand---girls might easily be a real danger. They were all but immune to her looks, and while she had always been the Queen Bee of her year, that status meant little or nothing in the Program. If anything, it could be a deadly disadvantage. Many girls had reasons to resent and dislike her, and now, with all the usual restraints gone and almost all of them armed, they could do something about it.

Some of the girls might follow her, if only out of habit, but Chris concluded quickly that in general, she wouldn't trust any female she saw. She'd pretend to be friendly and nice to get them off their guard, but when she saw the opportunity, she would eliminate her girl classmates as soon as she could.

She heard a rustling, and then she heard Frieda's voice. "Could you show me how to use that pistol? I might need to know."

George answered: "Sure, Frieda. Here you go. It's loaded and ready to fire, see? You can tell because this indicator back here is up. The safety's here, and you take it off so." A slight pause, and then a gunshot; even muffled by the fog, it was incredibly loud. "Frieda! You---you shot me!" Another gunshot, and some thrashing noises, followed by silence.

Chris nodded in reluctant respect. For Frieda to be tricky enough to get her boyfriend's gun, and cold-blooded enough to realize that the two of them couldn't, in the end, stay together---that meant that Frieda had more to her than Chris had suspected she did.

She heard Frieda gathering her gear and her late boyfriend's, muttering to herself: "Sorry, George, but it was either you or me. I intend to survive this little outing, so you had to go. I wouldn't have done it if I'd had any other choice, but as it was…at least I made it quick. I don't think you suffered."

Chris agreed completely with Frieda's logic, except on the part about making sure that people didn't suffer. A dark, nasty part of Chris' mind took savage pleasure in the pain of others, whether it was setting her clique of toadies on someone like Carrie White, or sticking a firecracker into Irma Swope's shoe. What's the point of all this, if people aren't going to suffer? she asked herself.

However, Frieda was still very close by, and still armed with that pistol, so Chris didn't say anything aloud. She held as still as she could while Frieda finished consolidating the gear she had been issued or had inherited, and finally got ready to go. To Chris' delight, Frieda walked out right past the bush that concealed where Chris was hiding.

Even though they were in the Program, and Frieda was playing, she was still slack. She didn't look around herself, so Chris had a clear shot. She stood up, poising the revolver in one hand while steadying it with the other hand cupped beneath the butt, and squeezed the trigger just as Frieda came by.

The revolver bucked and roared in her hand, and Frieda's head seemed to disintegrate, collapsing in on itself as the hollow-point bullet tore through her brain. She took a step, purely on automatic, and crumpled to the ground, her bags falling from her suddenly-nerveless hand. Chris held the gun on her for a second, trying to make sure that she wasn't playing 'possum, but even though she had never killed anybody before, she could see that Frieda was dead. After one or two twitches, she lay there on her side, very, very still.

Chris bent down and took the bag that Frieda had been carrying. "Thank you, Frieda," she cooed softly; she knew that between the trees and the fog, others could be not far away---she had every reason to know that!---and she didn't want to give her position away any more than she had to. "I'll make sure to put this to good use, and when I've won, I'll give you all the credit you deserve!"

With that as a valedictory, she turned and headed on up the path. She strained her ears to hear through the ringing that her gunshot had left, wondering who she'd run into next and hoping that whoever it was, she'd see them in time to avoid them or shoot.


	3. Chapter 3 Carrie White

Battle Royale Maine, Chapter Three---Carrie White

by Technomad

Carrie White crouched in a shed, her sides heaving as she shook with terror. She still felt a bit woozy from the effects of the drug they had given her to make her sleep, and finding that she, and her whole class, had been sucked into the Program made her want to shriek with fear.

_Momma! Oh, Momma, where are you? Why do they do these things to me?_ All her life, she had been the butt of her classmates' cruel jokes---an unending parade of nasty pranks, cruel words, and mistreatment, starting from the day she had entered school. Her clothes had marked her as different, and when she had gotten on her knees to pray in front of everybody, the shout of laughter that had arisen had echoed on down through the years. Even now, ten years later, she had never shaken that first impression.

However, even the worst torments her classmates had put her through paled in comparison to what now faced her. Although she had not been allowed to watch TV (Momma said that it was the devil's invention) she had seen enough in passing to know all about the Program. Compared to being killed, or worse, raped and then killed, the sort of things her schoolmates had done seemed awfully insignificant.

Reflexively, she knelt to pray, begging God to help her---and found herself kneeling against her bag. She was struck with a sudden bout of curiosity, and decided to at least see what the authorities had issued her.

_Let's see---six loaves of packaged bread, six bottles of spring water, a map of Matinicus Island, a list of my classmates, a pencil---and what's __this_? Carrie's eyes opened wide in shock as she saw the weapon she'd been issued. An Uzi submachine gun, with magazine after magazine after magazine of cartridges, and an instruction manual.

_O Lord, thy handmaiden thanks thee_! She had begged God to help her, and God had answered her prayers, albeit by the unlikely medium of the Program's random distribution of weapons. Carrie sank to her knees, giving her god heartfelt praise, before picking up the Uzi.

It was heavier than she had thought, but felt good in her arms. First, she extended the stock, then folded it again, deciding to leave it extended. Experimentally, she racked the bolt back, then pulled the trigger to send it forward. After doing that a couple of times, she tried fitting a magazine into the well in the bottom of the grip. Everything fitted together like a perfectly-put-together puzzle.

As Carrie looked down at the gun, she felt a smile twist her face. It didn't feel like a "nice" smile, but that didn't bother her one little bit. She knew that a lot of her classmates would have scruples---that they'd hesitate to kill their friends. She had no such problems. She didn't have any friends. What she had was a dark well of hate down deep inside her---a million and one old scores that were overdue for paying back. She had had to swallow her rage and resentment for too long. Now it was time to show those worthless sinners just who---and what---they'd been trifling with!

_Make me an instrument of Thy vengeance, O Lord! Grant that I may mow them down like wheat before the scythe, in Thy mercy, I pray! Let them feel Thy divine wrath, screaming down to the damnation they so richly deserve like the children whom Thou caused to be torn into pieces by bears for mocking the baldness of thy servant, Elisha!_ The prayer rang through her mind, and she meant every word of it. There wasn't one---not even one---of her classmates for whom she felt the slightest pity or remorse.

Stepping out of the shed, she found that a fog had rolled in. She was quite grateful for the fog; it would make it a lot easier to creep up on her classmates unobserved. None of them were really aware of it, but she had long since learned to be very unobtrusive---moving silently and staying out of sight, in order not to be picked on. She had to acknowledge that in the Program, such a skill, no matter why it had been acquired, could be a literal lifesaver.

She was standing near a house, and she could hear voices. She crouched behind a bush, waiting. The owners of the voices hadn't noticed the sound of the shed door opening and closing; luckily, she hadn't slammed the door behind her. The fog muffled sounds, so at first she couldn't place the voices.

"---do you really think people will play?"

"I don't know, Mary. At least we're lucky enough to have each other. I could never kill you---you're my sister, after all!"

So that was who it was. Donna and Mary Lila Grace Thibodeau. They hadn't been foremost among her tormentors, but they didn't have clean hands---oh, no, not at all! The two sinning Jezebels had done their share of poking, pinching, tripping, hiding Carrie's things, and laughing at her.

_The great day of His wrath has come…woe, woe, woe to the inhabiters of the Earth!_ It was a good line, from the best book in the Bible, Revelations. Oblivious to the danger, the two were strolling along, for all the world like it was a normal day in Chamberlain, with no Program and no classmates trying to kill them. _The Lord hath delivered them into my hands, to do with as I will…_

The sisters came closer, and closer still. Through the fog, Carrie could see them more and more clearly; she was standing behind a large bush, and they hadn't spotted her yet. They had weapons---Mary had a derringer and Donna had a hatchet in her hand---but they weren't really ready for a fight.

They were only about ten feet away when Carrie stepped out. Racking the bolt on the Uzi, she leveled it, pulling the trigger. The submachinegun bucked and roared more than she had thought it would; it pulled up and to the right, and she was so startled that she nearly lost control of it. More through instinct than anything else, she took her finger off the trigger.

Bad shooting or no, she had done what she set out to do. Mary was lying on her back, twitching convulsively; she was still alive, but from the look in her eyes, she wasn't tracking at all. Her chest was covered in bright red blood---brighter than any Carrie had ever seen---and more of it bubbled up as she watched, both through holes in her shirt and out of her mouth.

Donna, on the other hand, was in better case. She'd been hit a couple of times, but wasn't as badly hurt as her sister. She was trying to get up, and not doing well at it. As Carrie came closer, Donna's eyes went wide as saucers. "Carrie! Carrie, you---you shot us!" She paused to spit out blood. "_Why_?"

Carrie laughed out loud; when she had first realized that she was now in the Program, she had thought she'd never laugh again. _Of all the stupid questions I ever heard, that takes the prize! _

Donna had nearly gotten herself as far as sitting up, when Carrie fired another burst into her. She was getting the hang of controlling the Uzi, and every bullet went just where it wanted to; Donna flopped back with three 9mm Parabellum rounds in her gut. Carrie stepped forward and took the axe out of her nerveless hand, then turned and relieved Mary of her derringer, which she stuffed into her pocket. She grabbed both girls' bags and pulled them out of reach, to look through at her leisure.

Donna was watching her through pain-glazed eyes, disbelief writ large on her face. "Why?" she whispered. She was pretty clearly fading, with the blood flowing more and more slowly; she wouldn't last too long. It looked pretty painful. Carrie felt a rush of savage satisfaction. This was the first part of her revenge, but she vowed that it wouldn't be the last---not by any means!

"Why?" Carrie squatted on her haunches, watching curiously as the sisters died. "Don't you remember all the things you did to me, back in school? What in the world did you expect?"

"Didn't---the Bible teach---'thou shalt not kill?'" Donna spat up a big gobbet of blood; the effort of saying so much had clearly drained a lot out of her. "Murderer! You're a murderer!"

"No, I'm not," Carrie answered, as she consolidated the sisters' belongings and her own in a single bag, making sure to take the ammunition for the derringer as well as the food and water and maps. "The verse says, properly, that 'thou shalt do no murder.' Murder is _unlawful_ killing. The Program's as legal as church on Sunday." She stood and cocked the Uzi again. "So this isn't murder. Think of this as repayment of a bunch of old debts. I haven't forgotten a thing, and now I can finally do something about it."

She looked at the sisters meditatively. Deliberately, putting all her strength into it, she kicked both of them in the head. When she kicked Donna, she heard a sickening crack, and Donna's whole body convulsed as though she had been hit with a jolt of electricity. After that, she lay very, very still, and her chest no longer rose and fell. Mary was out of it, but she was aware enough to groan when Carrie kicked her. The heavy, clunky shoes that Momma had insisted she wear gave her kicks some real authority. If she'd been wearing the sexy little high-heeled things that most of her female classmates favored, she'd not only not be able to kick, but she'd have a hard time traversing the sandy soil, or anything but pavement.

Turning from the dead and dying girls, Carrie surveyed the surroundings. The fog was still thick, but she was sure she'd heard shots from somewhere. Others were playing, it seemed. She stroked the submachinegun she now carried under one arm, its strap over her shoulder. The heft of it comforted her.

_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil---for I am the most dangerous thing in the valley!_ The blasphemous parody of the psalm was something she'd heard one of the boys quote once; it was something that he said his older brother had learned in Vietnam. Blasphemy or no, it fit her mood.

_Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord---and I am his instrument, the chosen vessel of his wrath! _ Carrie threw back her head and gave a wild, happy laugh. She was looking forward to this!


	4. Chapter 4 The Golden Couple

Battle Royale, Maine---Chapter Four

The Golden Couple

by Technomad

Sue Snell slipped through the bushes. Since she had left the place where she had awakened, she had run until she had made it into the undergrowth. Afterwards, she had slowed down; she knew from games of hide-and-seek that rapid movement was easy to hear.

The sky had clouded over, and fog was rolling in, thicker and thicker. Sue welcomed the fog, since it would make it less easy for anybody out there to see her. _At the same time_, it occurred to her, _it'll make it less easy for me to see anybody---and I might need to_! She felt like crying. _You just can't win in this game_!

Mastering the urge to weep, she sat still, listening intently. She heard a shot, but it was muffled enough by the fog that she couldn't tell where it had been. _So---some of us, at least, are playing_, she thought grimly. She wondered who was playing, and if they had actually managed to kill anybody.

Mastering her fear, she started analyzing the problem carefully. Some of their classmates, in her opinion, wouldn't last long. Some were just inept; the sort of person who tripped over their own feet if any chance for that existed. Others, she judged, would be dangerous, if they were playing. But who would play, and who wouldn't?

Being a girl herself, Sue thought about girls---she knew them better, and more intimately, than she did the boys. She, herself, was not at the top of the female pecking order in their class---that honor, if that was what it was, belonged to Christine Hargensen. Sue was pretty sure that Christine would play. She didn't care much about anybody else, and Sue knew fully well how cruel Chris could be.

_That bitch would shoot any of us down in a second---and giggle about it afterwards_, thought Sue. She remembered the nasty pranks Chris would play vividly. While she, herself, stood high enough in the pecking order to be mostly immune to Chris' bullying, she had seen more than enough to be sure that Chris couldn't be trusted.

The Thibodeau sisters, on the other hand---Sue thought that if she could link up with them, she'd have a better chance. The twins deferred to Chris, but all the girls did; it was the only way to avoid being targeted by the Queen Bee and her nasty little clique of toadies. In general, Sue thought the Thibodeaus were pretty sane and reasonable. _With three of us, we can stay alive for long enough to figure a way off this damned island_…

In the distance, a submachine gun sputtered. After a short pause, another harsh sputter came, and Sue's blood ran ice-cold. _Holy Jesus! Did they give someone a __machine gun__?_ She shook with terror at that thought.

Reminded of the fact that they had weapons, Sue began investigating her sports bag. She found that, just as they had been told, she had been issued a supply of food and fresh water. She was particularly glad to see the water; she knew that without it, she'd have to go hunting for water and that could be very dangerous. An ambitious player could stake out a pond and just wait for victims to come up to be killed.

_What weapon did I get?_ she wondered. She delved further into her pack, finally finding a revolver and ammunition. She looked at it carefully. It was a Smith & Wesson, in .357 caliber, and she had a hundred rounds of ammunition. _ Well---at least I got something that would shoot! _She relaxed for the first time since she had awakened to find that she'd been sucked into the Program.

Just then, she felt herself being tackled, and smashed into the ground. With the wind knocked out of her, she squirmed, trying to free herself from the body that was on top of her.

"Got you---got you good…" came a voice in her ear. It was Henry Stampel. Sue's head was ringing from the impact, but she could hardly believe what she was hearing. Henry Stampel was one of the quietest, most studious kids in their class, and, if anything, paralyzingly shy around girls. Him being a threat was all but unbelievable.

As Sue gasped for air, Henry got up off her---and she found herself staring at the business end of a knife. She reached instinctively for her pistol, which she had dropped, and Henry knocked it out of her reach. "Strip!" he snarled. The knife was suddenly at her throat. "Strip, I said!"

Sue could hardly believe her ears. "You---you want me to _what_?"

"Strip!" Henry jabbed forward with his knife, and Sue whimpered as the tip scratched the delicate skin over her jugular. She sobbed as she began undoing the buttons of her blouse. She had always wondered about her first time having sex, but she had never envisioned losing her virginity to a rapist.

She undressed as slowly as she dared, wishing desperately for something to distract Henry so she could reach her pistol. At first, she hadn't thought she could hurt anybody, but with every button she undid, she was angrier and angrier. By the time her shirt was unbuttoned all the way to her waist, she could have cooked Henry's heart over a slow fire.

Henry was watching her undress with laser-like concentration, and it turned out to be his undoing. His eyes were fixed on the gap down the front of her shirt, and he never saw the person who suddenly loomed up behind him. He never knew what hit him, dying before he even knew he was in danger.

Sue stared in horror at Henry's crushed head, then up at her savior. It was Tommy Ross. "You all right, Sue?" asked Tommy, gallantly turning her head as she rapidly re-buttoned her shirt and retrieved her pistol. To her annoyance, Sue's hands shook so much that it took a few minutes for her to put herself back together.

"I am now," Sue answered. Tommy was carrying a baseball bat that was now smeared with Henry Stampel's blood and brains. Sue found that the sight didn't disgust her quite as much as she would have expected. Having Henry try to rape her, probably before killing her, tended to give her a different perspective on things like that. "Did they issue you that baseball bat?"

"No. I got a bullhorn. Found the bat in a shed I was going through." Tommy Ross was one of the best baseball players in their school, and had talked about trying to turn pro. Sue had seen him knock balls out of the park many times, and she thought that a baseball bat was a very good weapon for him.

She suddenly had an idea. "Tommy---let's team up." As Tommy stared at her, she explained: "With two of us, we've got a better chance of at least staying alive until we can come up with some way to beat this game."

"Sounds like a plan." Tommy suddenly grinned. "Do you want Henry's bag?"

"No. Take it. Your kill---your bag."

"We'll share the water and food; we've got to make the water last. I've heard that inland, it's easier---they usually have the Program on an island in a lake or something like that, and fresh water's easier to find. There's springs and streams here and there here, but I don't want to risk going to them if we've got a choice." Since that was what Sue had thought, she just nodded. She picked up Henry's bag and knife and handed them to Tommy.

As they turned to go, they found themselves confronted by the Garson brothers. Both of them stank of beer---Sue thought they might have found the stuff in a cooler or fridge somewhere. Even though they were reeling, their gun hands were steady as they pointed a .45 Government Model automatic and a crossbow at Sue and Tommy.

"Well, well, well, lookie at what we've got here," Kenny Garson sneered. "Looks like we've got us a nice little bit of fun!" Both hoods laughed and laughed.


	5. Chapter 5 The Queen and the Drone

Battle Royale, Maine---Chapter 05

The Queen Bee and the Drones

Chris Hargensen cocked an ear. In the distance, muffled by the fog, she could hear the harsh chatter of a submachinegun. Somebody else was definitely playing, and from the sound of it, whoever it was had a better weapon than she did.

_Don't get too cocky just yet, Chris!_ she thought. It was still early on in the game, and she knew more than enough about the Program to know that it could last for days. Matinicus Island was large enough, and well-wooded enough, to provide several days' worth of "sport" for the viewers who were watching. She had seen several towers that had been set up in preparation for the Program, with television cameras behind bulletproof glass on the top.

With two pistols---the revolver she had been originally issued, and the Walther P-38 she had taken from Frieda---she stood a fair chance in a firefight. She wasn't much of a shot, but neither, to her best knowledge, were any of her classmates. At least, not with handguns. _Do any of them hunt?_ She didn't know. Hunting had always been a "guy thing;" Chris and her friends had never taken enough of an interest to even know who, if anybody, did.

That was something that she now regretted. Her father had seen to it that she did know how to use a pistol, saying that he couldn't always be there to protect her. "I hope the day never comes, Chris," he had said, "but if it does---if some scumbag wants to hurt you---you shoot first, shoot fast, and shoot to kill. I'd rather bust myself keeping you out of prison than bury you."

At the time, she had rolled her eyes, but now she blessed his wisdom and foresight. She hadn't anticipated being sucked into the Program; who did? It was something that happened to other people. She hadn't taken too much of an interest in the Program, beyond giggling with her girlfriends about particularly gruesome deaths, or the deaths of people that didn't measure up to their very strict standards of beauty and social desirability. Once she had found herself in the Program, she had accepted coldly, that she would have to kill. As a matter of fact, she had found, down deep in her soul, that there was part of her that actively enjoyed killing. _Who knew how much fun this could be_?

Christine was moving carefully through the fog; she was a Maine native and had spent enough time on the shore with her family to be used to dealing with fogs. She had the revolver in her hand, and the P-38 where she could grab it in a hurry. Ahead, she could make out some buildings.

She moved forward, very cautiously. She knew buildings were deadly dangerous; in the Program, they were often traps. Someone who had gotten in earlier could be waiting inside, ears cocked for the first sound of the door opening.

At the same time, buildings could be cornucopias. There were all sorts of things to be found, even in the most mundane home, that could be the difference between survival and losing. While the power was off, rendering refrigerators' contents increasingly unusable as time went on, there were likely to be canned goods and non-perishable foods, to supplement the bread that she and the other players had been issued. Her stomach rumbled as she considered that possibility; the bread she had choked down earlier wasn't enough to really keep hunger at bay, and she had been expending energy since then.

When she was close to the buildings, she paused, stretching her hearing as hard as she could. She could hear nothing; there was no breeze, and the fog muffled sounds in general. The nearest building was marked as a clinic, and it occurred to her that there could be all sorts of useful things in there. She knew that the chances she'd not be injured were close to nil---one winner, she had heard in passing, had commented "you don't win this game so much as survive it; there is no winning without pain."

The clinic door was hooked, but she was able to pry it open with little trouble. Matinicus Island, being so isolated from the mainland, had very little crime, and most houses and buildings were not securely locked. Barely daring to breathe, Chris slipped inside.

The inside was plain and simple; a reception area and an examination room not unlike the one at the doctor's office she patronized in Chamberlain, with a couple of small rooms off to the side. In the middle of the room was an examination table, and she smiled at the thought that she should shuck her outerwear and jump up on it. She checked quickly, satisfying herself that the building was empty.

In one corner stood a cabinet, and Chris moved over to examine it. It was locked, but it looked like she could break it open if she wanted to. Before she did anything, she dragged a couple of chairs over to the front door, positioning them so that anybody who wanted in would make enough of a racket to alert her.

Once she was reasonably sure she wouldn't be interrupted, she began studying the cabinet. It was not designed to stand up against a really determined assault, and she found a fire axe that had it open in seconds. She figured that it was wired to an alarm system, but what with all the power on the island being off, that would be no problem. After she broke it open, she waited for a minute, and when no alarm went off, she nodded to herself. Sure that nobody had noticed anything, she looked in to see what she could find.

The narcotics and other controlled substances she had hoped to find weren't to be found. Apparently when the inhabitants of Matinicus had been notified that they were to be evacuated so that the Program could borrow their island, the doctor, or whoever actually ran this clinic, had had enough advance notice to gather up all the stuff that might get someone high. Chris was disappointed---a supply of pep pills, she thought, would be exactly what she needed to give her victory on a plate_. If I can stay awake and alert when everybody else is dropping on their feet, this will be easy!_ Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen; she would have to compete with the others on an even footing.

However, that didn't mean that she had wasted her time. Apparently whoever had run this clinic had been into chemical experimentation; there were quite a few things there that had no place in medicine. She scooped a bottle out of the cabinet, stashing it in her shirt pocket. Chris smiled a nasty smile. _This__, in particular, could provide a few unpleasant surprises…_

After she had exhausted the possibilities of the cabinet, Chris moved on. She swept up bandages and disinfectant; she was under no illusions about her chances of surviving unscathed, and being able to at least try to treat her own injuries could be the difference between survival and death. She wished, for a second or two, that teaming up with others was possible; it would have been a good thing to be able to relax and let someone else take a turn watching out for enemies. Unfortunately, things were as they were, and she knew she had to win this alone.

She glanced up, and felt a cold chill go down her back as she saw a shadow falling on one of the curtained windows. Apparently, outside, the fog was breaking up, and the sun was shining through, more and more strongly. On the one hand, it was a lot more easy to move around unnoticed in thick fog; on the other hand, others could sneak up on her more easily in fog.

The shadow moved, and Chris heard someone trying the door. Crouching behind the examination table, Chris pulled out her revolver, holding it ready in her hand. It was a double-action, but she planned, if need be, to fire it single-action, by pulling back the hammer so that a slight twitch on the trigger would be all that was needed. As a girl, she didn't have the upper-body strength that males took for granted, and like most pistols, the revolver she had been issued had been designed with a male user in mind. Her hands were just that bit too small, and just that bit too weak, to use the revolver in double-action.

After a while, whoever it was outside gave up and went away---at least, Chris couldn't hear him (or her) any more. Letting out the breath she hadn't been aware she was holding, Chris carefully put the revolver down. For a few seconds, she gave way to a fit of the shakes. For a while, the clinic had felt like a refuge, but now, it felt like a trap. She wanted to get outside; she felt hampered and closed-in, and like she couldn't breathe easily.

Moving to the back of the building, she found a window opening out onto the bushes behind the clinic. Moving very carefully, she slowly opened the window, and then cut the screen out with a scalpel she had appropriated. Once she was done, she had an opening wide enough to wriggle through, which she promptly did, landing as quietly as she could and looking around carefully. Nobody seemed to be around, and she was covered fairly well by the bush, so she crept away.

A few minutes later, she found out who had been sniffing around the clinic. Henry Blake, a member in good standing of what Chris and her friends called the "Machine-shop Chuck" crowd, came into view. All he had, as far as Chris could see, was a butcher knife; Chris figured that he'd found it in a house somewhere after being issued one of the useless "surprises" that had been mentioned in the training film they'd all had to watch.

Chris tried fading back into the bushes, but Henry saw her before she could make her escape. She turned to run, but tripped over a root she hadn't noticed, and he was on her before she could get away. "Ha-HAA! Got you, you bitch!" he chortled. His breath stank like five-day-old garbage. Chris' stomach lurched, and her disgust overrode even her fear. _My God---did this guy __ever__ hear of toothbrushing or mouthwash?_

Bad oral hygiene or no, he had her, and clearly had some plans for her. "You fucking rich bitch…always thought you were too good for me…" he hissed, his face twisting into an insane smile. "You always looked down on me…acted like I was trash…"

_That was because you __were__ trash, trash_! Chris and her crowd had always treated Chamberlain's "greaser" crowd with contempt. They had their eyes on much higher-status guys, and sneered and giggled at the greasers' attempts to impress them. At that time, the girls had known that no matter how angry they made the greasers, they were unlikely to be in any danger themselves. The cops, and their fathers, would come down so hard on any greaser that dared raise his hand to one of them that he'd never see the outside of Skawshank Prison until he was old and gray and bent. And the greasers knew it.

Unfortunately, in the Program, that didn't apply---and she'd dropped her pistol when she tripped! She tried to grab the other pistol, but Henry was too quick; he grabbed it and threw it away before she could reach it. He drew the knife along her cheek, not quite cutting her, and she shuddered, closing her eyes.

"You---you want me?" To her annoyance, her voice came out trembling and weak-sounding. Henry nodded eagerly; Chris thought that his expression was even stupider than usual when it looked like he would be getting some sex. _Wonder if he's ever had any before…_ From the way he was acting, Chris was fairly sure that Henry had never had sex in his life, and she suddenly knew just what to do.

"Well---" Chris gave him a smoldering look, and reached up to the top buttons of her shirt. Teasingly, she began to unbutton, making sure that his attention was riveted to her hands. That brought her hands very close to her shirt pocket.

Suddenly, she grabbed the bottle she had hidden, popped the top off, shook it two or three times with her thumb over the top, and threw the contents into Henry's face, holding her breath. As she stumbled backward, still holding her breath for dear life as she dropped the bottle, Henry gasped involuntarily, taken completely by surprise. His face turned purple and engorged, and although he took a couple of steps toward her, his strength was draining out of him. He collapsed, convulsing, and twitched a few times before he died.

Chris smiled down at his body as she collected her guns. I need to figure out a better way to carry these, don't I? As she turned to go, she purred: "Sorry, Henry. I guess it's true…there's some guys who just can't hold their cyanide."


	6. Chapter 6 The Avenging Angel

Battle Royale, Maine—Chapter 06

The Avenging Angel

Carrie White crouched in a sheltering clump of bushes, deep in a thicket of pine trees. After killing the Thibodeau twins, she had wandered about for a while, watching more and more carefully for potential enemies as the fog had lifted. Finally, it had dissipated, and the spring sun was shining.

She regretted the loss of the fog; with it, she could move about more easily, with less fear of being seen. She patted the Uzi that she now carried slung under one shoulder, but she knew fully well that she was a very long way from victory and a return to the bungalow on Carlin Street in Chamberlain. The Program usually lasted several days. She knew enough about it from overhearing her classmates' discussions of what they had seen to know that "it wasn't over till it was over," to quote one of Miss Desjardins' maxims about sports.

And, speaking of Miss Desjardins…with a crackle, the loudspeaker system came to life, and Carrie heard her gym teacher's voice, echoing out over the whole island like the voice of God in the Old Testament.

"Hello, Matinicus Island! I do hope you're all enjoying yourselves! How's about we skip the formalities and get down to business---that all right with you?" After a brief pause, Miss Desjardins continued: "Already we've had some losses, and the game's only been running a few hours! I knew that my faith in you was justified!"

_You blaspheming idolator, I wish you were out here so I could show you the true meaning of faith_, thought Carrie angrily. She was happy to finally have a chance to retaliate against her tormentors, but that didn't mean she liked having been picked to be in the Program. Her Momma said that Catholics, like Miss Desjardins, were Satan's own spawn, and doomed to hell; Carrie just figured that made them fair game. After all, didn't Momma say that "cold weather is God's way of telling us to burn more Catholics?"

Oblivious to the ill-will Carrie was sending in her direction, Miss Desjardins went on: "Right, now to list the unlucky ones. First, the girls---ladies first!" She giggled, and then said: "We've lost Frieda Jason, Donna Thibodeau, and Mary Lila Grace Thibodeau. I guess you can't keep twins apart, can you?" A short pause, with the sound of paper crackling coming over the speakers, then: "And, among the less gentle sex, we've lost Henry Blake, George Dawson and Henry Stampel, in addition to Billy deLois and Henry Trennant. So far, so good---I do hope you can keep it up!"

Carrie nodded grimly in her hiding place. She had figured that there were other players out there. Idly, she wondered just who they were. She wouldn't put anything past Christine Hargensen, and she knew that the "wanna-bees" that swarmed around her would follow her lead right up to the time she deliberately led them into a trap. She also thought that the "greasers" wouldn't mind doing some killing. She had had a lot less trouble with them than other people had, but she was under no illusions about just how cruel they could be, and with all restraints gone and weapons in their hands---she shuddered at the thought of falling into their hands alive.

On the speakers, Miss Desjardins was wrapping things up: "Right now, we have two danger zones. A-3, and C-10. Normally, we'd have had a few more, but we think you're doing such a bang-up job…get it? Bang-up?…that we decided not to draw any more right now. Keep your ears open this evening, for more news."

Carrie was consulting her map. Neither danger zone was anywhere near where she was; right at the moment, she was not far outside of a populated area, and the zones that had been named were well off to the edge of the island. She nodded. At the moment, she was safe enough.

Safety, real safety, was something she seldom had had in her life. Even before the Program, before the hell-school she'd been forced to attend, she'd always had to keep a weather eye on Momma.

Sometimes, things were good, or at least, not-bad. Sometimes, though---sometimes things were very bad indeed at the little bungalow on Carlin Street. There were times that, try though she would, Carrie just couldn't please Momma. No matter what she did, Momma would fly into insanely intense rages, howling that Carrie was evil, she was the fruit of sin, she was going to Hell, and then the beatings would begin. If Carrie was lucky, she'd just get thrown into her closet for a few hours, until Momma had calmed down. At other times---Carrie remembered many times when she'd been beaten until she was nearly unconscious, and actually grateful for the all-covering clothes that Momma insisted she wear, since they covered up the bruises and burn marks.

All unwillingly, she felt a carnivore's smile twisting her face. _If I can survive this game, and go home…things __might__ just be different_! She had heard that Program survivors could often get away with a lot. _I've got this derringer now, and with that, I might just be able to turn the tables on dear Momma!_

The thought was blasphemous, horrifying---and terrifyingly seductive. _But I __love__ Momma…_Relentlessly, the part of her mind that she couldn't lie to began parading a stream of memories past her. Momma, screaming and punishing her for daring to go to the church youth camp that she had worked to earn the money for; Momma, not letting her have so much as a lousy pillow on her bed; Momma, refusing to even listen to Carrie's pleas to be allowed to at least dress so that she didn't stick out from the other kids…at seventh and last, Momma was the cause of almost all of Carrie's woes.

She pulled the derringer out, studying it as though she had never seen such an object before. Finally, smiling that carnivore smile, she slipped it down her shirt-front…between what Momma insisted on calling her "dirtypillows." They were big enough, thanks partly to the pudge that she couldn't seem to shed, that the derringer was completely hidden. This way, if someone thought she was disarmed, she'd have a nasty little surprise…and if it were God's will that she survive the Program, she'd have a wonderful counter-argument to use the next time Momma started on one of her fits of rage. Two shots of .45 Long Colt would stop about any tantrum.

She peered out through the bushes. She could see a building, and what looked like a dead body lying near it. Other than that, she couldn't see anybody about, but she knew that wasn't proof that it was safe to be seen. However, she could get close to whoever was lying there without showing herself, and she thought she could see a bag near the body.

After what seemed like a long time spent slowly creeping through the bushes, Carrie was close enough to the body that she could touch it, and hadn't shown herself in the open. By this time, she could see pretty clearly that it was Henry Blake, and that he was definitely dead. His face was discolored and distorted, and the way he was lying would have been horribly uncomfortable if he hadn't been dead.

His chest---there was something really odd about his chest. His shirt didn't look like it fit really right, and Carrie could see something odd underneath it. After a few minutes' worth of peering about and not seeing anything dangerous-looking, Carrie finally broke cover, grabbing Henry by the arm and hauling him back into the bush where she could examine the corpse at leisure.

She hadn't seen any weapon near him, and at first, she wondered what Henry had been issued. Once she had the body under cover, the mystery was revealed. Carrie's eyes went very wide when she saw what Henry had been issued.

_A bulletproof vest! O Lord, thou hast seen thy handmaiden's need and sent her that which she needs to survive and wreak your wrath on the unbelieving!_ Grinning gleefully, Carrie set to work, stripping the vest off of Henry's stiffening corpse, heedless of the clammy feel of his skin or the slight smell of bitter almonds she caught when she brought her face close to his.

The vest turned out to be "one-size-fits-all," with Velcro fasteners that could be adjusted to suit any wearer. Carrie warily stripped off her shirt, making sure that her derringer was safely tucked down in her bra, and wriggled into the vest. Once it was firmly in place, she slipped her loose-fitting shirt back on over it. She couldn't see herself, but she thought she looked just about the way she had before. Disheveled, to be sure---but after having to spend so much time sneaking around through the woods, they all would be. _Including those bitches who always tormented me for my frumpy clothes_, she thought with a giggle.


	7. Chapter 7 An Unlikely Alliance

Battle Royale Maine---Chapter 07

An Unlikely Alliance

Sue Snell

Sue froze in terror at the sight of the Garson brothers. They had a sinister reputation at best---there were terrifying rumors about the things they had done over the years. Girls they had taken up with often turned up with mysterious bruises, and occasionally broken bones; guys they didn't like tended to have "accidents" of various sorts, and although their parents were dirt-poor, they were, somehow, always flush with cash---and seemed richest right after some poor soul's car had disappeared, or his house had been broken into.

And now they were loose, in the Program, and apparently drunk as lords and out to make the most of what they had to see as a heaven-sent opportunity. Sue's hand moved toward the butt of her pistol, and Kenny Garson's eyes narrowed. "Not so fast, rich bitch." He gestured with the muzzle of his pistol. "Keep your hands away from your belt, or you'll get a .45-caliber stomachache! An' that goes for you too, baseball boy!"

Sue risked a glance at Tommy. He was pale, but composed, and made no sudden moves. She could see that the Garsons were out of range of his ball bat, so she didn't blame him; all the useless heroics in the world would still leave him dead and at least one, if not both, of the Garsons alive and in a mood for revenge.

Lou Garson giggled insanely. "Hey, Kenny---what d'you think it'd look like, if I punched the rich bitch's belly-button out with my crossbow?"

Kenny whacked his brother alongside the head, Three-Stooges style. "Idiot! We need to have our fun first. What's the use of her if she's dead?" Then he smiled ominously. "There'll be plenty of time for that---later!"

"Yeah-yeah…later!" Lou leered evilly. "We don't need baseball boy, though, do we?" He gestured wildly with his crossbow. "Remember how the teachers always used to favor him over us?"

"Yeahhhh…" Kenny sneered. "Bastard! All the time, the teachers were nice to _him_, while they treated _us_ like something they'd stepped in on the street! Well, baseball boy, it's payback time!"

"Why?" Tommy sounded honestly puzzled, and Sue couldn't blame him. "What did I, or Sue, ever do to you? I don't think we've ever exchanged five words in all the time we've been in school!"

"What about all the times we got thrown in detention, while you skipped away, free as a fuckin' bird?" shouted Kenny. "What about the times we got hauled in by the pigs, while they never bothered you? What about us gettin' in trouble when you never do?"

"Yeah! The damn cops hate us, while everybody loves you!" yelled Lou.

"Uh---might it be because you're always getting up to things that land you in trouble?" Tommy was trying to reason with them. While Sue wished him all the best of luck, she didn't think much of his chances. Reasoning with people like the Garson brothers, she privately felt, was like trying to teach a pig to sing: you wasted your time and annoyed the pig. And when the pig was covering you with a .45 and his brother was holding a crossbow...she tried to signal Tommy to shut up, but he didn't get the signal.

"What do you mean?" To hear him, Kenny Garson had never, no _never_, done anything in his life that any reasonable person would expect to land him in the soup. "We never do anythin' wrong!"

"Yeah---just a couple of fun-lovin' good old boys, that's us!" giggled Lou. "We just wanna have fun!"

Sue felt rage blaze up inside her. "Oh? What about that girl who came back from 'a little ride' with you, with her eyes blacked and three teeth missing? She'd have a few things to say about you, and your ideas of 'fun!'" Sue sneered. "Of course, you had fun, didn't you---you raping scumbags!"

Tommy drew in his breath in a horrified hiss. "I heard about that, but couldn't believe it! Are you shitting me, Sue?"

"I saw her in the girls' room, the Monday after her little 'date' with these bastards," Sue said bitterly. "She'd pretty obviously been raped, but just because she was from a poor family---'trailer trash'---the cops didn't listen to her; they thought she'd been asking for it by going out with these two!"

She had managed to focus the Garson brothers' attention on her, and Tommy took advantage of it, throwing his baseball bat overhand with every ounce of strength he had. It hit Kenny Garson full in the face and he fell back, reflexively pulling the trigger of his .45 as Tommy leaped on him.

Both boys rolled around, snarling inarticulate curses, as they fought for control of the pistol. Lou Garson tried to aim for Tommy with the crossbow, but couldn't do it---Kenny and Tommy were moving too fast, and there was too much of a chance of hitting his brother by mistake. However, he'd taken his eyes off Sue, which was all the chance Sue needed.

Sue yanked out her pistol, thumbed back the hammer and aimed for Lou, squeezing the trigger. The .357 round smashed into the side of his head, splattering his brains across the ground, as he crumpled; he was dead before he hit the ground. The sound of the shot paralyzed Kenny and Tommy both, and Sue ran up, jammed the muzzle of the pistol into Kenny's side, and squeezed the trigger hard. Firing double-action was a lot harder than doing it single-action, but she managed. The revolver barked, and Kenny slumped off to one side, a huge gush of blood coming from his mouth. His eyes still flickered around, but Sue could see---and smell---that he'd lost control of his bladder and bowels; she had severed his spine with that shot.

Shaking, Tommy got back to his feet, taking the .45 from Kenny's unresisting hand. "Thanks, Sue," he muttered, wiping sweat and blood from his face; he had cut himself in several places in the fight. He looked down coldly at Kenny Garson, who was still alive, but in no shape to fight any more. Reflectively, he hefted the .45---then lowered it, aiming it right between the hood's eyes.

"Good day, Kenny---or should I say goodbye?" He pulled the trigger, and the back of Kenny Garson's head seemed to explode as a neat red circle appeared between his eyes. The hoodlum's body bucked in a massive spasm before slumping in final death. Tommy looked at Sue, his face turning pale.

"I can't believe I did that---that you did that," murmured Sue. Then she looked at the two corpses, and felt her stomach rebel. She didn't have much to throw up, but what there was, she spewed on the ground, bent over at the waist as her stomach tried to expel everything she had ever eaten. The lingering side-effects of whatever they had been drugged with to bring them to Matinicus Island weren't helping; she had felt slightly sick from the moment she had awakened.

"I know what you mean," Tommy whispered. He looked at the corpses like he'd never seen anything like them---and he probably hadn't; as far as Sue knew, none of them had ever done anything like this before the Program.

A voice from behind them startled both of them, and they whirled, to find themselves facing Billy Nolan---the leader of Chamberlain's hood squad. "Very nice job, you two," he drawled, cradling a pump-action shotgun. "I couldn't have done it better myself!"

Tommy and Sue drew their pistols, and Billy held up a hand. "Cool it---cool it!" He cracked a lopsided grin. "I'm not interested in playing!" Then he gave them a penetrating look. "Are you?"

"Us? Hell, no!" Tommy's voice rang with sincerity. "If those two assholes had left us in peace, we'd have left 'em be...but they tried it on with us, and we got the better of them!"

"That's a pity. That's a real pity," Billy mused, shifting the shotgun so that it didn't---quite---point at Tommy and Sue. "I'd been trailing those two assholes for a while. They didn't know I was there. If you hadn't shown up, I had a little surprise planned for them."

"But---aren't you and them friends?" Tommy was suspicious, and Sue couldn't blame him. Billy Nolan was the acknowledged alpha-male of the "greaser" or "machine-shop Chuck" crowd in Chamberlain. He set the tune they all danced to, and, as far as Sue knew, none of the greasers would willingly go against his wishes.

"I put up with them because I had to," Billy explained. "Even so, I never forgot---or forgave---the time they stole and ruined my new bicycle, back when I was twelve years old." A shadow passed across his face. "The only nice thing I ever had, and it was gone two weeks after I got it. By the time I figured out who'd taken it, those shitheels had absolutely ruined it. There were two of them, and only one of me, so I couldn't do nothin'---but I didn't forget."

"We have something in common, then," offered Tommy. "I'm pretty sure those bastards were the ones that took my ten-speed bicycle a year ago. I had it parked and locked at the swimming pool, but when I came out, the chain had been cut and the bicycle was gone. Those useless bastards at the cop-shop never did find it."

"You weren't wrong. The Garsons did take it, and sold it in the next town over." Billy scowled. "Those two would have stolen the shit from under a squatting dog."

"Hey, Billy---do you want to team up?" Sue had been struck with an idea. "With three of us, there's a better chance of surviving, and if we survive long enough, we maybe can find a way off this island."

Billy looked at them consideringly. Finally, he nodded, and stuck out his hand. "It's a deal," he said. "I saw how you took the Garsons down, and anybody who can do that is all right in my book." Sue could hardly believe that she was willing to team up with the likes of Billy Nolan, but the Program had already changed her. After all, before the Program, she had no more thought she could kill anybody at all than she could grow wings and fly.

"Come on---those shots might have attracted attention. Let's get under cover!" Billy moved toward the trees, and Tommy and Sue followed along, leaving the Garson brothers lying dead in the sun.


	8. Chapter 8 The Queen Checked

Battle Royale, Maine

Chapter 08---Queen in Check

Chris Hargensen figured that she was on a roll. She had heard the "homeroom announcement," and smiled to herself at some of the names that had been called. She had, of course, ticked them off the class list that had been so thoughtfully provided, as well as marking the danger zones. Right then, though, she was well out of danger, so she wasn't too worried.

It was her private opinion that most of her classmates were fools. She was glad enough to be the alpha-female---the "Queen Bee"---in her class, but she was contemptuous of the girls who let her dominate and bully them so spinelessly. As for the boys---she shook her head silently at the thought of how stupid _they_ were.

They really thought that battering each other to pieces on the football field was what would impress a girl. While she was by no means averse to watching football, it was mainly because the players' trousers were nice and tight, and there was always the chance of someone being amusingly injured. Meanwhile she, as befit a person of her superiority, got to sit up in the stands, nice and safe, and watch the lower beings sweat and grunt and thrash about in the mud and grass to amuse her.

The way to impress Christine Hargensen was to spend lots of money on her, and to clearly not need to worry about replacing it. For her, it was "all about the Benjamins;" her mother had pounded it into her head, early and often, that her role in life was to "marry the best good provider you can stomach." Men existed, in her view, to cater to her and spend money on her. If the money stopped, she would be out of the door and off to the divorce lawyer before the fool knew what hit him, and by the time she was done, he'd be lucky to be left his eyes to weep with.

She knew enough about the Program to know that her attitude would be an asset that might make her a winner. Compassion, pity for the weak, and friendship were liabilities here on Matinicus. Friends could team up, but sooner or later, the iron logic of the Program ensured that teams would break down in internecine fighting. She'd watched enough TV to know that much.

In any case, she wouldn't mind a chance to thin her classmates out. But right for the moment, she thought she could just sit back and relax. The bushes she was in were thick, and if anybody came near, she figured that the noise they'd make would alert her in plenty of time. The sun was out, and had burned off the last of the fog. It was still a little cool, but on the whole, it was a pleasant day.

Chris allowed herself a pleasant reverie, thinking about all the fun she could have as a Program winner. She knew that Program winners were given many privileges vis-a-vis the law, and that other people tended to be very wary of them. After all, any Program survivor would have had to kill and kill again, and likely had killed friends---such a person was not to be trifled with.

Chris was quite used to not being a person one trifled with lightly---her status as "queen bee" and her father running interference for her with the adult authorities had taken care of that for many years. However, she still had to defer to her father. Not having to take his sensibilities into account any more would be wonderful. _All I'd have to do, _she thought dreamily,_ would be to give him a Look, and he'd shiver and do just what I wanted..._

She heard a rustling noise, and then a thump as someone stumbled through the bushes, catching a foot on a tree-root. She snapped back to full awareness, remembering that the Program was far from over. She turned to find herself staring at William Bosnan.

She figured she could handle him---he was, after all, only a guy, and ever since she'd started growing curves, she had found that guys were easy to hypnotize. Putting a seductive purr into her voice, she said: "Oh, hi, Will. My, it's good to see you here."

Will looked at her, but unlike the other boys, he didn't immediately start to drool. Chris was puzzled. That had always worked before---always! Maybe he was in love with someone else? Chris patted the ground beside her invitingly. "Come sit with me, Will. It'll be nice to have someone else around I can trust---I _can_ trust you, can't I?"

Will gave her an unreadable look. "Yeah, you can trust me." He threw his bag down on the ground and sat down beside her. "This is sure a hell of a note, isn't it? I never thought that I'd end up in the Program!" Despite the cool weather, he wiped sweat off his brow---Chris noted with distaste that he was breaking out in pimples---and pulled a bottle of water out of his bag. "I've got to make this stuff last. I don't know if there's any sources on this island other than what they gave us."

Chris eyed him narrowly. He was apparently smarter than she had thought he was. One reason she had played so enthusiastically was so that she could appropriate her classmates' supplies, since she couldn't be sure how long the game would last. She knew fully well that running out of water could lead to all sorts of trouble, possibly forcing her to do something stupid to get the stuff. At least they weren't in the Southwest! Chris remembered things she had seen on TV about the Program in states like Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.

In the desert states, the Program was invariably held in a patch of desert a long way from any towns. What with the explosive collars, it was not difficult to set forbidden zones around the area that the players would be using, so that they couldn't just cross the desert to escape. The play often came down to control of water holes; someone who staked out a water hole could rack up a great score, and often ended up winning the game merely by being able to ambush his or her classmates when they came seeking water.

Will was watching her closely. She eyed his bag---she was well-found for supplies, but could always use more. _Showtime, girl_...She gave Will a smoky look. "You know, I never really realized it before, Will, but you're really pretty cute." She moved closer to him, putting her hand on his arm. Oddly enough, he didn't seem to realize what she was driving at. What was wrong?

"You never had two minutes for me before in all the years we've known each other, Chris. What are you up to?"

"Up to, Will? Why should I be up to anything?" Chris mentally cursed Will's perceptive streak. "I thought we might team up..."

"Till you shot me in the back, right? Or stabbed me?" Will began backing away, his eyes wide with fear. "Get away from me, Hargensen! I know what you're up to! Only one can win, after all!"

_Damn__ it_...Chris yanked out the revolver and pointed it, but firing double-action was more difficult than thumbing the hammer back and firing it single-action; the extra effort needed to pull the trigger back all the way spoilt her aim. The revolver roared and spat fire, blowing a chunk of bark off a nearby tree.

Will apparently hadn't been playing, for all his awareness of what the Program entailed. He fumbled at his belt, trying to pull out a pistol, but it caught on the cloth. With a scream of fear, he pulled harder, tearing his clothes as the gun came free. It was a Luger; Chris recognized it from pictures she'd seen.

Will had had the sense to put the Luger somewhere that he could reach it, but apparently he hadn't thought to cock it. He pointed it, pulled the trigger, and looked puzzled as it didn't go off. He yanked at the toggle on the back, pulling it up and letting it fall---but he wasn't familiar with Lugers, and didn't pull it far enough.

Chris, in the meantime, had had time to pull the hammer back on her revolver. She held it, steadying it with both hands, and fired, aiming for Will's center of mass. The bullet caught him in the torso, and he fell back with a shriek of pain. The Luger fell from his hand, out of his reach, and Chris came forward, kicking it farther away. She'd pick it up later. "Sorry, Will," she commented calmly, "but you were right. Only one can win, and I intend to be that one." With that, she cocked her pistol, raised it and blew Will's brains out.

Once Will was dead, she recovered the Luger, and began going through his bag. She consolidated the water and food he'd been carrying with the supplies she already had, and spent a few minutes examining the Luger. It looked useful, so she kept it, wishing she had a holster to put it into. She considered making it her primary weapon, but she had heard her father discussing Lugers---they apparently were rather unreliable. Until she was sure she knew what she was doing, she figured she'd stick with the revolver.

Kneeling over the corpse, she noticed a small notebook sticking out of one of Will's pockets. _Curiouser and curiouser_...She pulled it free, keeping it clear of the spreading pool of blood. She opened it, and found herself reading a very steamy fantasy about Will---and Tommy Ross! Eyes widening in shock, she paged on through, and saw more and more stories, all starring Will and other boys in her class, or men she knew. When she saw what Will had fantasized about her father doing to him, she put the book down with a convulsive shudder. _That_, she figured, was sick and wrong, however hot the stories about her classmates were!

_No wonder I couldn't hypnotize him!_ She had to admit that he'd kept his orientation secret very well, but she knew that boys her age loathed anything to do with homosexuality. If this had fallen into anybody else's hands, it wouldn't have required the Program to end Will's life.


	9. Chapter 9 Bishop's Gambit

Battle Royale Maine---Chapter 9

Bishop's Gambit

Carrie White prowled along through the bushes, making sure to move as quietly as she could. Her eyes flickered around, never still, watching for enemies, while she strained her hearing for any noises that might betoken another person in the vicinity.

She smiled to herself---a rare occurrence; she seldom if ever had reasons to smile. The Program, so far, had been very good to her. She had been given a wonderful weapon, and now had protection against anybody trying to shoot her. Not that a bulletproof vest was absolute protection, but she knew that most of her classmates were not nearly good enough shots to aim for her head or limbs and have much of a chance of hitting them. They'd aim for her center-of-mass---her torso---and that was now well-protected.

She also had found that she enjoyed killing. She had often fantasized about taking revenge on all her tormentors, and in the Program, she had a chance to do just that---and, to top it all off, it was all perfectly legal, as she'd gleefully pointed out to the Thibodeau twins. _Any of those sinners I see, __any at all__, are __dead__!_ she thought vengefully. While she was particularly interested in taking down the girls, she was by no means averse to shooting boys, if she got a chance; Momma had told her, many times, that all boys were disgusting, filthy sinners who just wanted to get her alone and "have their way" with her. What "having their way with her" entailed was a mystery to her. She had tried asking Momma about it once, only to set off one of Momma's fits of rage and end up confined to the closet.

Carrie hefted the Uzi. Its weight was a comforting presence, and she felt like it was already an old, dear friend. She wondered absently if they'd let her keep it after the Program. She knew that as a Program winner, she would be a privileged person, but she wasn't sure just how far those privileges went. If they took the Uzi, though, she still had the derringer, tucked down between her breasts. Not to mention the hatchet. After all, she knew that Lizzie Borden had solved a lot of her problems with one of those...

_Lizzie Borden took an axe_

_ And gave her mother forty whacks_

_ When she saw what she had done_

_ She gave father forty-one..._

In Carrie's considered opinion, she couldn't blame Lizzie one bit if her parents had been anything like as disagreeable as Momma was. In the school library, she had read the accounts of Lizzie's exploits with considerable interest, but did not dare to check them out. Momma did not allow her to read at home, other than schoolbooks and religious tracts---and, of course, the Bible.

Reading the Bible was one thing that Momma never objected to, and she didn't check to see just what parts Carrie was reading. Carrie liked the parts about God smiting sinners---she had a long, long list of people she'd like to see God smite. And---heretical thought---Momma was high on that list.

However, in God's absence, Carrie felt inclined to do some smiting of her own, and her luck in drawing the Uzi meant that she could do it. She smiled carnivorously, and remembered the Thibodeau twins' astonishment and horror when she had shown herself. _What did the sinning Jezebels expect from me, of all people? A big kiss and hug? _

She heard voices ahead, and went very still. They were familiar enough---she could recognize Rhonda Simard's slightly nasal tones anywhere, and that had to be Jessica Maclean and Helen Shyres with her. Those girls were thick as thieves. Wary as any other hunted creature, Carrie bent down and peered through the bushes.

Sure enough, the three girls she had thought she heard were out there. They were standing in someone's front yard, tucking into some food that they had apparently stolen from the house they stood in front of. The front door had been kicked off its hinges, and hung awry, leaving the entryway open. Carrie shook her head disapprovingly. She knew that buildings, in the Program, were often traps for the unwary. She'd been lucky finding that shed to hole up in so she could calm down, but this far in, any building could hide deadly danger.

Of course, the girls she was watching hadn't been through the hard training she had inadvertently been given, back in Chamberlain. They hadn't had to watch, every minute, for enemies to leap out of the bushes or the woodwork and begin to mercilessly torment them. _Too bad for them_, Carrie thought grimly.

They didn't see her; they weren't looking around. Anybody at all could see them, standing there in the open, as unconcerned---at least on the surface---as though they were back in Chamberlain. Helen Shyres was carrying a hand-sickle, of all things. The other two girls had pistols. They were chattering and giggling, and Carrie strained to hear what they were saying.

Rhonda snickered: "Did you see Swope's face when we came out of the bushes and caught her? I thought she'd shit herself!"

Carrie's eyes narrowed. While she was bullied frequently, she was not the only one. Irma Swope was also a favorite target for those girls who enjoyed cruelty. With a mild facial deformity, she was different enough to draw their attention, and she wasn't assertive enough to fight back effectively. Carrie remembered that Chris Hargensen had once put a firecracker in one of her shoes, and it had nearly blown two of her toes clean off. Of course, Chris, with her lawyer father running interference, had avoided serious punishment. He had intimidated the Swopes, who were unable to afford a lawyer's services, out of suing somehow.

Helen chuckled reminiscently, "The stupid bitch thought she could bluff us with those grenades! It wasn't a bad idea, but she should have remembered to pull the pins, shouldn't she?"

Rhonda smiled. "When they didn't go off, she gawped like a hooked fish, just before I blew her away!"

Jessica shook her head. "You're not much of a shot, though. It took five shots to finish the stupid bitch off." She patted her pistol. "Lucky they gave me this Army pistol. It's got enough punch to take anybody down, first shot."

"It's good to have you with me," commented Helen. "With companions we can trust, we have a chance to beat this game and escape!" She laughed unkindly. "Too bad for the others!"

"Yeah, sucks to be them!" Rhonda agreed.

That was all Carrie needed to hear. She'd had to put up with more than enough of that kind of attitude---_sucks to be you, Carrie!---_ before the Program, and she was good and fed up. She felt a hot flush of rage run through her body as she stood up, racked back the bolt on the Uzi, and let fly from the hip.

The Uzi gave a chattering roar, and the girls shrieked in fear, but although they went down, they weren't dead; the Uzi wasn't terribly accurate at the distance Carrie was shooting at, and she'd only winged them. Rhonda and Jessica pulled out their pistols and fired back, making Carrie duck back into cover.

"Did you see that? Did you see who that was?" Helen Shyres' voice was full of pain and fear; she was clutching her side where a dark red stain betrayed a hit. "That was Carrie fucking White! Who does that crazy bitch think she is?"

_I think I am your judgement, sinner_! thought Carrie. Bullets whined around her, but most of them went high, and none came near enough to really worry her---the girls were by no means good shots. That's right, you filthy whores, waste your ammunition, and much good may it do you! She pulled the magazine out of her Uzi, just as it showed how to do in the manual, and slotted in a full magazine, thriftily returning the empty magazine to her bag. _After all_, she thought, _I may well be able to lay hands on more ammunition for this thing..._the manual had said that it took "9mm Parabellum," and even Carrie knew that was a very common caliber. The chances of finding someone else who was carrying the same stuff were good, and every round would help.

Out in the open, the girls had shot their pistols dry. "Damn! Did you hit her?"

"I don't know! Where are our bags? Rhonda, where are the bags?"

"I left them inside! Don't you remember, Helen? We found that food, and we came outside to eat it!"

"Well, that's just _brilliant_! We're out of ammunition, and that crazy Bible-basher's out there somewhere! If we get out of this alive, Rhonda, Helen and I are going to _kick your ass_!" Jessica's voice was full of pain and fear.

Carrie smiled. _I'm not as far away as you think I am, you sinners!_ Standing up, she walked toward them, not bothering to conceal herself. She held the Uzi in the way the manual recommended, with the butt of the shoulder-stock against her shoulder and her finger off the trigger. The gun was cocked and off safety, ready to fire. She felt a broad, gloating smile spreading across her face.

"Hello, hello, _hello_," Carrie caroled. "Isn't it a _wonderful_ day? At least, for me it is!" Her voice and manner were an imitation of their gym teacher, and now Program director, Miss Desjardins. The girls' eyes went wide with terror as she walked forward fearlessly.

"Carrie! Don't do this! Please! We can work something out!" Rhonda's voice was shaking with terror. "We're classmates! You can't do this!"

"Oh, but I _can,_" purred Carrie. "This is the Program, remember? 'Only one survives,' and all that, right? You'd have shot _me_ down like a dog if the situation was reversed!" She raised the Uzi and sighted down the barrel, savoring the look of hopeless terror in Rhonda Simard's eyes. "This is for me---and for Irma Swope, _bitch_!" She pulled the trigger, placing her shots carefully. Rhonda screamed more loudly than Carrie would have thought possible; Carrie's bullets had gone just where she wanted them to, and Rhonda had five rounds in her lower abdomen. Carrie had heard enough about hunting in passing to know that being gutshot was horrendously painful. Rhonda was dead---her body just didn't quite want to accept the fact yet.

Jessica Maclean was trying to lever herself up on her feet to run, but a thigh wound betrayed her, and she collapsed, sobbing pitifully. "Oh, God, please don't kill me, please, please, please...I want to live, I want to be married one day...please, don't kill me..." she moaned, all dignity forgotten in her pain and terror.

Carrie leveled the Uzi. "I am not God. My name is Carrietta White." She pulled the trigger. The Uzi bucked and gave a chattering roar, and Jessica screamed in agony. Like her friend, the wounds were not immediately fatal, but her pelvic area was shattered, and she couldn't last too long. Carrie bent over her, observing her writhing and convulsing with clinical detachment. "And I do think that being married is now right out of the question, isn't it?"

Carrie had been so diverted by seeing two of her tormentors begging her futilely for their lives that she had forgotten Helen Shyres. She heard a sound behind her, and turned just in time to save herself as Helen swung the hand sickle down at her head with every ounce of strength in her body. Instead of plunging into Carrie's skull, the sickle glanced down the side of her head, shearing one of Carrie's ears clean off, before the point cut Carrie over the collarbone.

"Bitch---bitch---bitch!" hissed Helen. Carrie, startled, fell backwards; the shock of losing her ear meant that the pain hadn't kicked in, and all she felt was a warm wet feeling down one side of her face and body. Helen cocked back the sickle to take another swing at Carrie, but it was too late---Carrie had brought the Uzi to bear, and when she pulled the trigger, she caught Helen right in the torso; Helen looked like she was dancing for a second as the bullets tore through her, before she collapsed bonelessly, her eyes rolling up in her head.

Just then, the pain hit and Carrie let out an anguished howl. She crawled over to Helen and tore her skirt off, holding it against her head with one hand while cradling the Uzi in the other hand and scanning the surroundings; all that shooting might have attracted the wrong sort of attention.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish, all three of you," she whispered, clenching her teeth against the temptation to let out another scream. "Now, next thing to do is find some things I need..." With that, she scooped up the girls' guns and headed into the house. She figured that she could improvise some sort of bandages from what had to be in there.

END Chapter 09


	10. Chapter 10 Moves and Countermoves

Battle Royale, Maine, Chapter 10

Move and Countermove

Sue Snell

Sue felt much safer once she was in the woods again. She knew more than enough about the Program to know that being visible was often a death sentence, and although the Garson brothers were by no means popular among most of their classmates, they did have cronies who might well want to avenge their deaths.

Off in the distance, she could hear the distinctive chatter of a submachine gun, and she shuddered. Not only had those madmen issued somebody such a weapon, but whoever it had wound up with was apparently playing! She did know that a lot of the point of the game was random distribution of weapons, but she thought that submachine guns were excessive. Of course, she had to admit that had she been issued one herself, her viewpoint would have been very different.

She gave Billy Nolan a considering look as she paced along behind him, with Tommy behind her. Billy handled the shotgun he'd been given as though he'd been trained with it for years, which was a comfort; Sue knew that she was no expert with firearms and that Tommy wasn't likely to be one either. In a real firefight, they could easily end up shooting themselves dry without damaging their enemies.

Sue wished bitterly that she'd been given firearms training. She had heard Chris Hargensen complaining about her father insisting that she learn how to shoot_. Typical spoiled-bitch Chris behavior_, Sue thought. She would cheerfully bet her boots that Chris was now blessing her father's foresight and wisdom. _It wasn't enough that Chris-the-bitch was always able to get out of trouble_, her thoughts went on. _She's a good candidate for surviving this awful game---God __damn__ her soul! _ Just then, they all heard a premonitory crackle, and they froze.

"Afternoon homeroom. Get out your class lists and maps," whispered Tommy, his eyes flickering around at the shadowy woods surrounding them. Sure enough, the familiar voice of Miss Desjardins could soon be heard, echoing out from a dozen strategically-placed loudspeakers all over Matinicus Island.

"_Good_ afternoon, little warriors! My, my, _my_, you _have_ been a busy little bunch! I have to say that I'm quite proud of you!" A pause, then Miss Desjardins went on: "So, on to the latest news. First, the list of the dead. Among the boys, we've lost Kenneth and Lou Garson. I guess I was right---you really can't keep twins apart! I'd have thought they'd last longer, but this game is all about surprises!"

"I wish she was out here," muttered Tommy savagely, as Billy and Sue both motioned for him to be quiet. "I'd give her a surprise!"

"We're also saying farewell to Will Bosnan, which wraps up the losses among the boys. The gentler sex has also lost some members: Irma Swope, Rhonda Simard, Jessica Maclean---and, this just in, Helen Shyres. Keep this pace up, little warriors, and you may set a new record for speed in this game!"

"That's a distinction I could live without," muttered Billy. Sue absently shushed him, as she got out her map of Matinicus Island.

"Now, for forbidden zones. In fifteen minutes, at 1700 hours, A-3 will be off-limits. At 1900 hours, B-2, C-2 and H-1. At 2100, you'll lose D-5 and G-1. Your next announcement will be at midnight, so stay tuned for the latest, greatest updates from your station for the Program---Command Central!" The loudspeakers crackled once more, and then were silent.

All three of them got busy marking their maps. Tommy spoke up: "It looks to me like they're systematically closing off the edges of the island. They want to force us together, to keep the action going as fast as possible."

"Right now, we're in D-4, which means we're safe for a while. I think we should try to stretch out and get some rest, taking turns for being on guard. Anybody object to that?" Billy suited his actions to his words by lying down in a pile of leaves, his shotgun close to his hand. In a few minutes, he was snoring softly, and Sue thought that his face looked much nicer when he wasn't trying so hard to look tough.

"Mind taking the first watch, Sue?" Tommy asked. When she nodded, Tommy also lay down, curling up on a soft patch of ground. He was obviously really tired, and it wasn't long before he was sleeping, too. Sue sat down on a nearby log with her back to a sturdy tree and concentrated on staying awake and alert. Before long, though, she found herself contemplating the two boys she'd teamed up with.

She had known Tommy Ross all her life, and she admitted privately that if she'd been asked to predict who, among her classmates, she'd end up with, Tommy'd have been top of the list. He was a star athlete, but unlike the "dumb jock" image, he was smart and a good student. He had told her once that he wanted to go to law school, and she thought he'd be a wonderful lawyer.

Billy, on the other hand, was someone she'd had much fewer dealings with. He was from the poorer part of Chamberlain, and she knew that he came from a pretty crappy home. His mother had an unenviable reputation, and was known for having very bad taste in men; more than once, Billy had shown up for school with strange bruises and injuries, and been extremely close-mouthed about just how he'd come by them. Sue thought she had a pretty good idea, though.

At the same time, Billy's tough upbringing gave him a lot of advantages in the savage world of the Program. He wasn't as bad as the Garson brothers, or some other people Sue could name, but he was probably more willing to do the necessary to survive than she was. He'd been in enough fights to be past the fear of violence itself, and did seem like he knew what he was doing. Sue smiled to herself as she thought: _If I'd been brought up on the wrong side of town, dodging the cops and tougher kids, I might be better-equipped to deal with this!_ She pictured herself as one of the tough kids, with teased hair, too much makeup, a few crude self-applied tattoos on her left arm, wearing a black bra under a white shirt, and with a cigarette dangling from her sneering lips. The thought was incongrous enough that she almost laughed aloud.

Just then, she heard a rustling in the brush, and instinctively froze. As quietly as she could, she nudged both boys in the ribs with the toe of her shoe, and they both snapped awake. Tommy seemed a little disoriented at first, blinking and looking around, but Billy was instantly aware, gripping his shotgun.

"I think someone's near us, so I thought I'd better get you two up," Sue murmured. She knew that the hissing of whispers carried farther, and did not want to take a chance on alerting whoever was out there.

Crouching low, Sue and the two boys peered through the bushes, holding as still as they could; they did not want whoever was there to know that they were near.

Within a few minutes, they saw who it was. Sue shuddered to see Chris Hargensen creeping by, not fifteen feet from where she and her two companions lay hidden. The former "queen bee" had a cruel, vulpine smile on her face as she stalked along, a pistol in her hand and another shoved into her waistband.

One look at her removed any slight doubts that Sue had entertained about Chris' willingness to play. Chris looked like she could, and would, gun down any of their classmates that she could, and wouldn't lose an instant's sleep over any of them.

Once Chris was out of sight, the three looked at each other. Billy Nolan was the first to speak. "Brrrr!" he shivered. "I used to think that Chris was a hot number, but right now...after seeing her like that, I don't think I'd ever trust her!"

"You didn't have to deal with her on as close a basis as we girls did, Billy," Sue explained. "You just saw her good looks; the rest of us had to deal with her nasty side. You do know that she was the one who put the firecracker in Irma Swope's shoe, don't you?"

Billy looked ominous. "_Was_ she, now?" he murmured. "Not a lot of people know it, but the Swopes are shirt-tail cousins of mine, on my mom's side of the family. I do hope we get another chance at her..." He hefted his shotgun and smiled grimly. "I never did like arrogant rich snots who got away with shit that I couldn't."

"You and me both, Billy," Tommy said. "If I'd done anything like that, anything the cops did to me would be nothing compared to what my folks would have done. The way I heard it, sweet Chris' Daddy made sure the Swopes couldn't do anything. He has most of the legal side of things sewn up all around Chamberlain."

"But Chris is still here," mused Sue. "So there's a chance she'll pay for the things she's done. Right now, though, we should lay up and get some more rest. Who wants to take the next watch?"

"I will," said Billy. "You two get some sleep." As Sue lay down and felt herself drifting off, the last thing she saw was Billy Nolan, on guard, his shotgun in his hand as he warily watched for danger.


	11. Chapter 11 Queen in Play

Battle Royale, Maine---Chapter 11

Queen In Play

Christine Hargensen

Chris Hargensen prowled through the bush, feeling like the Queen of the Jungle. The weight of the pistol in her hand felt good, and she felt like she really appreciated something she had once heard her dad say to one of his friends, while they were looking at an Army pistol: "God created man---but Colonel Colt made men equal!"

She had always been able to handle boys, but she had never envisioned being able to take them on in an actual physical fight, much less winning! Like other girls, she had had to use indirection and feminine wiles to get her own way. She had to admit, this way was a lot more fun!

As she passed along a path, for a few minutes she felt a nasty prickling sensation on the back of her neck, as though someone was watching her. She paused, peering around suspiciously, but she couldn't see anybody. After a few minutes, she went her way, and the shivery, prickly sensation went away. She reminded herself sternly that she was a long way away from the victory she had imagined for herself.

She had kept track of who was dead, and quite a few of her classmates were still alive. She knew full well whom she had killed, and there were quite a few dead who had not fallen to her hand.

_Who else is actually playing?_ wondered Chris. She thought that the majority of her classmates would hide, trying to avoid confrontations as long as they could. Of the ones that would be likely to play---she grinned ruefully, remembering what had happened to Henry Trennant---the majority would probably be pretty inept. Mentally, she blessed her father's foresight in teaching her how to shoot.

_Even if you gave them Army rifles, most of the stupid bitches in my class wouldn't know what to do with them,_ Chris gloated silently. She smugly pictured some of the other girls---that blockhead Susan Snell, for instance---holding a gun up by its barrel with just the tips of their fingers, squealing "Ewww, _icky_! I can't use this---I hate guns!" _That's right, you stupid, gullible bitches, __cling__ to your ladylike ways---__until I gun you down__!_

She heard something moving ahead, and went very still, her back to the bole of a large tree---she was quite aware that, operating alone as she was, she could be sneaked up on from behind. She didn't really regret her decision to play a lone hand, if only because she knew that partnering or teaming with anybody would mean wondering when---not _if_, but _when---_her teammates would turn on her, but she did recognize the disadvantages of her choice. She could see around herself, but the bushes she was in prevented people from seeing her very easily.

Her eyes widened when she saw what had made the noise. Don Farnham was strutting along as though he was back in Chamberlain already, a smug smile on his face. Chris understood, when she saw what he was packing. Slung under his arm, he had what Chris recognized as a MAC-10 submachine gun.

_No wonder he's so confident!_ Chris knew how much lead a MAC-10 could throw into the air, from listening to conversations between her dad and some of his fellow "gun nuts," and with that kind of firepower, Don had reason to think he had the world by the tail and the Program in his pocket.

Chris smiled to herself. She knew more than enough about the Program to know that overconfidence was poison. Many players who thought early on that they were sure winners ended up among the lists of names of the dead read out over the loudspeakers. Chris, herself, was confident---but she _always_ kept in mind that until the last of her classmates was dead, she could still be taken down and someone else could emerge victorious.

Having that submachine gun, now---_that_ would be a huge boost to her chances. Chris hid in some bushes as Don went by, her mind beginning to buzz with schemes to lay her hands on that lovely weapon. Then her plans vanished, as Jeanne Gault came along behind Don, peering at a strange device she was holding in her hand.

"There's someone close by, Don," said Jeanne. Don turned and came back, looking at the device. "Can you tell where he is?" She looked straight toward where Chris was hiding. "I'd say it's off in that direction."

Chris felt a cold chill going down her spine. _Of all things---a collar detector_! She suddenly remembered that one of the "surprises" that was often issued in the Program was a hand-held detector that could tell its holder where other collar-wearers were, with approximate distances. She ran her finger around her neck, under the metal collar that bound her to the Program. All of a sudden, it felt uncomfortable and tight.

Chris came to a rapid decision. Shoving the revolver into the front of her shirt and down in under her belt, where she could reach it in a hurry but it wouldn't be visible, she stepped out of the bushes. "Hi! Good to see some friendly faces! I thought you were playing for a second, there! You gave me quite a start!"

"Chris." Don had swung to cover her with the MAC-10, but lowered it when he saw who she was. "How have things been going for you?" His reaction wasn't friendly, but at least he wasn't actively hostile. Jeanne, on the other hand, was glaring at Chris, and Chris suddenly remembered the times she'd gone out of her way to give Jeanne a hard time.

Jeanne could be a problem, Chris realized. So far, Chris had been able to avoid any consequences of her mistreatment of her less-popular, less-attractive classmates, but that couldn't last and she was coldly aware of it. If she had known that their class was going to be selected for the Program, she might have done things differently, but the chances of that happening were so small---who'd change things for the sake of such a remote possibility?

Well, no help for it. The world was what it was, and she'd have to deal with things, one way or another. At least Jeanne didn't seem to have a weapon. If Jeanne had been the one with the submachine gun, Chris thought that she'd have been gunned down the instant she showed her face, even if she really wasn't playing and was unarmed. Among other things, the Program was an excellent place to settle old scores.

"Have you two teamed up?" Chris asked, putting on a bright friendly smile. If Don had been alone, she'd have turned on the old sex appeal, but she knew that even girls she hadn't tormented or teased often distrusted her because she could make guys drool and bark. If these two had become a couple, even if just in Jeanne's mind, Chris didn't want to rock the boat in that direction---until the time was just exactly right.

"Yeah, we have. Seen anybody yet?" Don was wary of her, but didn't seem to be picking up on the hostility that Jeanne was radiating.

"Ever since they turned us loose, I've been spending most of my time hiding out." Chris blessed the foresight that had led her to consolidate the plunder she had taken from her classmates in one bag. If she'd been carrying two, or three or more, bags, she'd have never been able to convince these two that she'd just been hiding.

"You mean you aren't playing?" Jeanne was suspicious, but seemed to be buying Chris' story. "I'd have thought you'd jump right on in and play merrily away!"

"Jeanne Gault!" Chris put all the _faux_ indignation into her voice that she could; having had to listen to quite a few lectures in her time from adults who'd seen the things that she'd been up to, she could imitate the tone perfectly. "What sort of person do you think I am?" She summoned up a few fake tears, just as she'd have done if one of her teachers or some other authority figure had accused her of something she'd actually done. "How could you say such a thing about me?" The sob in her voice would have convinced even her worst enemies, she thought. _Nothing like the threat of death to improve one's acting..._

Don was fairly clearly convinced, even if Jeanne was still suspicious. "Well---why don't you come along with us? Three pairs of eyes are better than two."

"Oh, would you let me? Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Behind her mask of joyful gratitude, Chris was very amused. _Some men couldn't pick up on things if they were written out in inch-high letters and shoved in front of their faces_, she thought. Girls were harder to fool, at least for her. They picked up on things faster than boys did, and she couldn't just hypnotize them with her looks and sex appeal.

While Jeanne was obviously unhappy, she wasn't the one Chris was worried about, since she didn't appear to be armed. As long as Don was happy to have her around, all would be cool. However, Jeanne could still cause trouble, as by asking: "Just what did they issue you with, Chris? You can see I got this collar detector. Did they give you anything useful?"

Chris made herself blush, reaching into her shirt and pulling out the revolver she'd been given. "I got this. I fired it a few times, to see how it worked." That took care of the possibility that that bitch might want to examine the pistol; if she'd claimed she had never fired it, and Jeanne looked at it and saw, and smelled, that it had, it'd be curtains for her "innocent" act. And she _had_ fired it, after all---the only lie she had told was in implying that she hadn't known how it worked.

"Well---come along, then." Chris followed along after Don, noting in passing that Jeanne was behind her and keeping a wary eye on her. She smiled to herself, making sure that none of it showed on her face. She fully planned to have both that lovely submachine gun, and that very useful collar-tracking gadget, and as she started walking, she was already planning out how she'd get them both.

END


	12. Chapter 12 Bishop In Play

Battle Royale Maine, Chapter 12

By Technomad

Bishop in Play

Carrie White

After a half-hour's work, Carrie managed to staunch the blood from her ear---or, to be more precise, where her ear had been. Almost all of it had been severed by Helen Shyres' desperate swing with her sickle. Sshe knew that it could be re-attached, but that would not be possible until the Program was over, which wouldn't be for hours, if not days. That would be too late.

She peered into the bathroom mirror. The house she had entered had a second-floor bathroom, so there was a window to give her light, and she could see herself clearly. Of course, she had made sure the curtains were drawn. It would be silly to let herself be shot by someone prowling around outside who saw her through a window! She didn't think she had left a blood trail, and if she had, there was a chance that anybody seeing would also see the bodies of the girls she'd killed, and think that the blood belonged to one of them.

_After all_, she thought gleefully, _groups in the Program can be counted on to turn on each other!_ She had heard more than enough about the Program, even without being allowed to watch TV, to know that the brutal logic of "only one can survive" ensured that much.

The house, luckily, had had a supply of first-aid supplies. From what Carrie could see, at least one of the usual residents was a devoted athlete, and pranged him- or herself up regularly. She had noticed hockey trophies and memorabilia about; hockey players injured themselves frequently. With the aid of several large gauze pads and a roll of first-aid tape, she had improvised a bandage for herself. Her hair was stiff with blood, and one whole side of her tatty sweater and blouse were heavily stained. She knew that she'd need liquids, and had been delighted to appropriate a quart of cheap orange juice she had found.

Looking at her reflection, Carrie smiled grimly. She looked like hell, but she felt all right, save for the ache and sting where her ear had been. _If this means that people underestimate me, so much the better. Let those misbelieving sinners, heretics and unbelievers be dealt with as were the people of Sodom and Gomorrah!_

Once she'd put herself to rights, she went downstairs, grabbing the half-empty box of orange juice and draining it in one big swig. Her Momma would have had a fit to see her acting so uncouthly---Momma was as strict about table manners as she was about everything else, and minor slips could see Carrie banished to the closet---but Momma was nowhere near. And if she had been---Carrie imagined Momma in the Program for a minute, and nearly laughed.

_Momma would be one of the first ones gunned down!_ Even if she'd been issued a weapon as good as Carrie's Uzi---and Carrie didn't know but that there were even better weapons out there; not being allowed to watch television _was_ a nuisance sometimes---Momma was, if anything, even less popular than Carrie was. Many a time, Carrie had been regaled with stories about Momma's day at work at the laundry, and Carrie was quite intelligent enough to see that Momma was as much of an overbearing, bullying tyrant to her fellow adults as she was to Carrie. She couldn't get away with as much with other adults as she could with her own daughter, but she'd been cautioned more than once by Chamberlain's town constable that slapping people might land her in trouble some day.

Carrie didn't mind the idea of Momma being hauled off to jail, not at all. The thought of having the house to herself, with no fear that Momma would suddenly return, was pleasant_. And if I win the Program, I can make that happen!_ She imagined Momma starting one of her tirades, only to find herself staring down the muzzle of Carrie's Uzi, or the derringer she had concealed between her "dirtypillows."

That gave Carrie all the impetus she needed to get moving. The sooner she was out of the house, the sooner she could start winning. Then her blood froze, as she heard the door open and close.

"This looks like a good place to hole up," came a voice. Carrie recognized it as Jack Talbot, the son of one of the people Momma worked with at the laundry---and a prize troublemaker and hood. Terror ruled Carrie for a few seconds, and she scrambled into a walk-in closet, clutching her Uzi like the teddy bear she'd been forbidden as a little girl.

"Yeah, it does. Guess those crazy bitches outside must have started fighting. I can see blood in here." And that was Steve Deighan, another member in good standing of Chamberlain's greaser squad. Carrie wasn't surprised that they'd teamed up. They had always been thick as thieves---in the most literal sense. More than once, she'd seen them flashing cash that she knew they couldn't have earned honestly.

"Hey, while we're here, let's look around. There's probably some good stuff here, and those stupid bitches didn't have anything good on them." Carrie's eyes went wide. The third voice was definitely a girl. That meant, she figured, that it had to be Ruth Gogan. Momma had always called her the Whore of Babylon---but that was Momma's term for any woman she disapproved of. However, in this case, Carrie agreed wholeheartedly with Momma's conclusions.

Jack and Steve had not troubled Carrie much; they'd teased her now and then, but that seemed to be more a case of proximity combined with boredom. They had never particularly targeted her, if only because she didn't have anything they wanted. Momma didn't allow Carrie any pocket money, except what she could earn for herself by sewing for people, and she couldn't afford to buy any flashy toys with what she made, even if Momma would have permitted such extravagance.

Ruth Gogan, on the other hand, had been a terror to Carrie and most of the other girls. Hard-looking, with high-teased hair and too much makeup, she was just as unpleasant in her own way as Chris Hargensen. Perhaps more so---Chris, for all her cruelty and her nastiness, at least did not steal, while no girl's purse was safe anywhere that Ruth Gogan could reach it. More than once, she'd been caught going through another girl's purse, or flaunting something that another girl claimed to own. Punishments---detentions at school, mainly---had no effect on her. She had been the first girl in their class to take up smoking, and her left arm was covered in crudely self-applied tattoos, mostly the names of boys she claimed she'd slept with.

Having all three of those people in the same house frightened Carrie for a few seconds, before she remembered that she wasn't in Chamberlain any more. She was on Matinicus Island, and she had a gun! She smiled to herself, and decided to leave the results to God.

_If God prompts them to go on their way, they may go with my blessings,_ Carrie thought. _If, on the other hand, they're stupid enough to open this closet, they'll get the last surprise they'll ever receive_! She patted the Uzi affectionately---she had, of course, replaced the magazine she'd shot up with a fresh one as soon as she got inside---and awaited developments much more calmly than she would have in Chamberlain.

"This feels like the times when we'd go into someone's house, and see what there was for us to cop," remarked Jack. "Those were the days, weren't they, Steve?"

"Yeahhh," Steve replied, his voice caressing the word as though it covered a whole bunch of very pleasant memories. "We sure got a lot of good stuff that way, didn't we, Ruth?"

"I liked the time we found all that booze. Some stupid asshole had stored it up for a party, it looked like," Ruth answered. "Well, it didn't go to waste, did it? I still remember just how shitfaced we got that night!"

"Yeah, and me and Jack both ended up puking our guts out the next morning!"

"I just wish I'd been puking! I had a headache like you couldn't believe!" Ruth laughed reminiscently. "And when Mom found all those empty bottles, she gave me such a licking! 'You selfish little bitch, couldn't you share with your own mother?' she was yelling, all the time she strapped my ass with her belt!"

Carrie felt a moment's unwilling empathy for Ruth. It sounded like she had it tough at home, too.

"My dad doesn't care what I cop, as long as I don't get caught," said Steve. "He figures it's cheaper than buying me things. That way, he can spend his money on things he likes---mainly booze."

"And my Mom," Ruth remarked. "He's been in her bed pretty regularly for the last few months."

"Oh, he'll move on. Ever since my mom walked out on him, Dad's been through more girlfriends than I can remember. Most of them, I don't pay any attention to." From the sound of things, Steve and Jack were opening drawers in one of the bedrooms. "Not much here, at least nothing we can use. And these clothes probably wouldn't fit you, Ruth."

"No matter. Let's check around a little more. I bet there's something I'll like in here." With that, Ruth opened the closet door right in front of Carrie.

For a second, Ruth was paralyzed by surprise, which was all the time Carrie needed. She leveled the Uzi, and pressed the trigger, and Ruth was slammed backward against the hallway wall, her white shirt turning red as it was pierced by ten bullets. At that range, even a tyro like Carrie couldn't have missed.

There was now no time to lose. Carrie stepped out of the closet, knowing that the factor of surprise had been lost. For a second, all was silence, then: "Holy FUCK! Did you hear that, Jack?"

"Something's gone wrong with Ruth! Let's go see what it was!" Carrie turned and saw both hoodlums coming around a corner, their eyes widening with shock to see their friend down and bleeding, and Carrie White standing over her.

"You bitch! You shot Ruth! What made you do that?" yelled Steve. He fumbled at his waistband for the revolver stuck through it. Quicker on the uptake, or just less verbal, Jack yanked out a revolver and leveled it. His eyes went even wider when it didn't fire.

"You stupid bastard! That thing's a single-action!" Those were the last words Steve Deighan said, before Carrie brought up the Uzi and riddled them both. They fell backwards bonelessly, their torsos torn by bullets.

Carrie watched them for a few seconds. Ruth was still breathing, but she was clearly _hors de combat_; she was no threat. Jack Talbot was trying to bring up his revolver and thumb the hammer back, so Carrie walked over and gave him another short burst, this one shattering his skull. He jerked involuntarily as the bullets entered his brain, and then he lay very still.

Steve Deighan was trying to play 'possum, but Carrie could see that he was still breathing. She walked over and watched him for a while, meditatively thinking about him and the way he lived. Finally, she sighed and said: "You know, Steve---you really _shouldn't_ have stolen from our bungalow. Momma was really upset when those things went missing," and shot him dead.

Thriftily, Carrie gathered up the hoods' weapons. Jack Talbot had indeed been carrying a single-action pistol; Carrie recognized it from books she'd seen in the school library. It looked like a copy of a Colt Peacemaker. Experimentally, she thumbed the hammer back, before gently letting it fall on an empty chamber. Steve's revolver was more modern, and apparently took the same ammunition as the Peacemaker, so she kept it in preference to the Peacemaker.

Ruth Gogan's weapon, if that was what it was, was apparently one of the "surprises" that they had mentioned in the film at the school. All she'd had was a butcher knife, and Carrie wondered absently if she'd lifted it from some house or other, or had it issued to her. She used the knife to cut Ruth's tendons---even if she managed to recover, she'd be helpless. Then, after consolidating the hoods' supplies from their bags into hers, she turned to go.

As she stepped out into the evening, she watched around herself warily. Nobody seemed to be near, but she didn't really feel easy at heart until she was safely back in the trees. She had considered burning the house down behind her, but had decided that was a bad idea. It would attract attention to this area, which she did not want.

Also, the people who own that house aren't at fault and shouldn't be punished, she thought. She tucked into some bread and water, and made ready to hole up for the night, reminding herself to awaken at midnight for the latest reports on who was dead and what areas were off-limits.


	13. Chapter 13 Knights' Gambit

Battle Royale Maine, Chapter 13

Knights' Gambit

by Technomad

Sue Snell

When Sue awoke, several hours had passed. At some time, Billy and Tommy had changed places; Billy was curled up on his side asleep, and Tommy was on watch. She yawned, and Tommy looked over to her. His smile made her heart flutter.

"Slept enough? Billy and I changed off, but we figured letting you sleep would be a good idea. We might need to have you on watch through the night, after all."

Part of Sue wanted to scold him for treating her like a little girl, but another part was glad that he'd let her sleep. She did feel greatly refreshed, and would have been in excellent spirits if they hadn't been in the Program. Even as it was, she figured things could be much worse.

A crackle from the loudspeakers alerted them to some upcoming announcements. "Good evening, little warriors!" came Miss Desjardins' voice. Sue snarled silently. She had _liked_ Miss Desjardins, who had always been a good, fair teacher. This was a dreadful betrayal.

Oblivious to Sue's disapproval, Miss Desjardins went on: "I must say, you're doing quite well! Every time one of these 'homerooms' comes, I have new losses to announce! You're really doing Chamberlain proud!"

Tommy scowled and spat: "Bitch, if you're so fond of this _damned_ game, come on out and play! I'll guarantee you a warm welcome---one you'll never forget!" Sue and Billy, who had been awakened by the loudspeaker, shushed him.

"Since our last announcement, we've lost Steve Deighan and Jack Talbot among the boys, and Ruth Gogan's our sole female loss! Keep it up---you do know that twenty-four hours without any eliminations will force us to detonate your collars! So just go on the way you have and you'll be safe---at least from _that_!" She giggled, and continued: "As of 2100 hours---that's just three hours away---sectors H-2 and D-5 will be off-limits. At 2300---eleven p.m., that is---B-3 and A-5 go off-limits. Keep listening---next homeroom's at midnight. Different Program time, same Program channel!" The loudspeakers clicked off, and silence reigned again.

The three of them were busily checking off the names of the dead on their class lists and marking the off-limits areas. Tommy observed: "They're still picking their off-limits areas from the edges of the island. If the island was more of a rounded shape, they might do things differently, but they apparently don't want to cut off sections of it completely from each other."

"I'm not too surprised that Steve, Jack and Ruth went together," Billy said. "Those three were always as thick as thieves, and they'd have teamed up the minute they could. I wonder who took them down?"

"Could it have been Chris Hargensen?" Sue had seen Chris' expression, and even without that, she wouldn't have put anything past the "Queen Bee." She thought about it for a few seconds, then shook her head. "No, I don't think so. She might---and I emphasize _might_---have been able to hypnotize the boys, but Ruth is---_was_---a girl, and the crowd she ran with wasn't on good terms with Chris and her little coven."

"Chris is playing, but we know she isn't the _only_ one who's playing. It could have been anybody." Tommy looked at the class list in his hand, and shook his head. "You know, I'm a little surprised that Carrie White's lasted this long. I'd have thought she'd be one of the first eliminations. She doesn't have enough spirit to say boo to a goose."

"I know what you mean," Sue said. "Of course, the way she's been treated all her life, I'd say she has to be tougher than we'd think just to have lasted this long." She looked down, feeling her face go hot with shame. "I was never really one of the ringleaders in those shenanigans, but I was in on some of them. I can't say I'm really proud of it now. I guess there's nothing like staring death right in the face to make you look back at your life."

"You were kids. Hell, we all were kids," Tommy tried to reassure her. "Kids tend to be really rough on anybody who doesn't fit in. And with those weird clothes, and her praying ways, Carrie didn't." Tommy looked off into the distance for a second, at something only he could see. "God knows, we guys could be pretty nasty to anybody who wasn't good at sports, or like that…"

"You don't understand, Tommy. Guys can't hold a candle to girls in that field," Sue insisted. "My brother says that he thinks it's because guys know, down deep, that going too far can get their asses kicked, but girls don't think they have anything to fear, so they go a lot further."

"In any case," put in Billy, "whether she's alive or not, or even playing or not, that's nothing to us right now. We've got to stay alive until we can figure a way out of this mess." He looked thoughtful. "If we could slip these collars, now, we could hole up in one of the off-limits areas…"

"You think you're the first person to think of that?" drawled Tommy. "Good luck! Good _fuckin_' luck! These have been being improved and refined for decades now, and I'm sure every year some poor souls think they can figure a way to get out of them---and get their heads blown off their shoulders for their trouble!"

They had gotten so involved in their discussion that they had let their guards slip. Sue opened her mouth to point that out, just as a loud crack and a bullet singing past announced that they'd been found. Instinctively, all three of them flattened out on the ground, as another bullet went past overhead.

"Speaking of players…" Billy whispered as he worked the slide on his shotgun. "Can you tell which direction those came from?"

"Are you sure they're playing?" asked Tommy. Billy just gave him a look, while Sue rolled her eyes and silently asked God to witness what she had to put up with from the men in her life.

"Care to stand up and find out?" Tommy shook his head, looking off to their east. Another bullet sang past, and they heard voices.

"Did you get them, Dave?" Sue recognized the voice; it belonged to Myra Crewes. She was the most "feminist" of the girls in Sue's class---she was always complaining about how tough it was having to deal with the role girls were expected to play, campaigning against things like the custom of crowning a King and Queen of the school prom, and (in most people's view) making a pest of herself. It was Sue's considered opinion that if Myra had paid as much attention to her grades as she did to worrying about ways in which life wasn't fair to girls, she'd have been a lot better off---or at least off academic probation.

"Don't think so, Myra," came the answer. And that was Dave Bracken. He, at least, never had to worry about grades---he was a topflight student. "I told you that shooting from this distance was a bad idea."

"Well, let's get in closer and finish them off!" Myra sounded really bloodthirsty, even given that they were in the Program. Sue wondered if she'd always been that way and just found that the Program gave her an outlet.

Dave Bracken might have been an honor student, but in the Program he was pretty inept. Sue could hear him stumbling through the bushes, getting closer and closer to their position. Beside her, she could feel the boys tensing, making ready to counter-attack.

Billy suddenly rose to his knees, aiming his shotgun at a very surprised Dave. The shotgun roared, and Dave fell backward with his chest a red ruin. Behind him, Myra screamed in shock, as Tommy jumped up and pointed his pistol toward her, pulling the trigger as fast as he could. The pistol was less accurate than the shotgun, and Tommy wasn't that great a shot anyway, so he missed, and Myra turned and ran.

Billy's eyes narrowed as he pumped the shotgun, and before Sue could do anything, he leveled the gun and fired, catching Myra right in the back. She let out one scream and fell.

"You didn't have to do that!" gasped Sue, instinctively, before she remembered. "Oh---they were playing, weren't they?" She looked at Myra's body, and felt sick to her stomach. She had never seen eye-to-eye with Myra, but she hadn't deserved this. _None of us deserve this_, she thought rebelliously.

For a second, Billy looked unutterably weary. "Yes---they were playing. Let's get at their bags; any supplies they had are ours now, and we need to make our supplies last as long as we can."

Sue nodded. Cold-blooded it might have been, but in the Program, cold-bloodedness was at a premium. Before she had awakened in that hell-classroom, with the horrible collar around her neck binding her to the Program, she would no more have stolen from corpses than burn her family home. She found their bags, stashed safely under a nearby tree, and began searching through. When she opened Myra's bag, her eyes went wide.

"Either the long arm of coincidence is awfully long indeed, or someone's got a really nasty sense of humor," she remarked. At Tommy's questioning look, she held up the only thing she'd been able to find among Myra's possessions that could have been intended as a weapon. It was a coat hanger. Tommy didn't get it for a second, then he clearly did, if his snort was any indication.

"What is it?" asked Billy. He'd drawn Dave's bag, and was busily consolidating packages of bread and bottles of water into their own bags. Wordlessly, Tommy held up the coat hanger. Billy scowled. "If that's a joke, it's in pretty shitty taste, if you ask me. Did you know she has a retarded little sister?" Both Sue and Tommy shook their heads. "Someone---I don't know who, but I suspect the Garsons---sent her mother a coat hanger, with a note saying _Better Luck Next Time_."

Sue was horrified. Tommy was pretty clearly disgusted, too---he snarled "If they did do that, the only thing I regret about killing those two is that I did it too quickly!"

"Yeah, I know, but they're dead. Come on. We're a bit too close to the edge of D-5 here, and I want to be well away from any danger zones. It can be easy to misjudge where you are, and the collars don't care if it's a mistake."

"Good idea." The bags had been consolidated, and the trio moved out, wary as wild animals, hands on their guns and ready to shoot at a moment's notice.


	14. Chapter 14 Queen's Move

Battle Royale, Maine---Chapter 14

By Technomad

Queen's Move

Chris Hargensen

After a few minutes, Chris found herself following Dale and Jeanne out of the woods, into an open area. Chris was nervous; she knew that Dale's MAC-10 was not necessarily the only submachine gun out there, and for all she knew to the contrary---she was by no means an avid follower of the Program, a fact she now bitterly regretted---someone or other had been issued with something long-ranged. Out in the open, she felt naked. She wondered if that would go away once she had won and was back in Chamberlain. _Or will I always be antsy when I'm out away from cover?_

Jeanne noticed how twitchy she was. The other girl reached out and patted Chris' shoulder. "Hey, don't worry. It's cool. Look---" she held out the collar detector---"there's nobody near but us." Chris could see the three of them, clustered together in the center of the little screen, and no others anywhere close by. She relaxed slightly. Even so, she found herself reflexively scanning their surroundings---she wasn't 100% sure that the scanner worked perfectly. _It would be just like the sadistic bastards to gimmick that gadget so that someone who put too much faith in it would end up dead at the hands of the one person whose collar doesn't show up on it!_ It was something that she'd have thought was hilariously funny---before she got sucked into the Program. Even now, the thought of the expression on the face of someone like Carrie White or Irma Swope if they were counting on the collar detector, only to find that Chris' collar didn't register, brought a twisted smile to her face.

_I'm a__ pitcher __in these things, never a catcher!_ She managed to control her expression just as Dale turned toward her. "Come on, Chris," he said, oblivious to her thoughts. "There's a bunch of us holed up at the church. We got together and decided to team up right after we were let out."

Curious, Chris followed in his wake. She hadn't known there was a church on Matinicus; the place seemed to be too small for one. Sure enough, as they turned a corner, there was a large white frame church. Dale stopped and held up his hand. "Hey, it's us! We're back---and we brought someone with us!" Chris approved completely---if she'd forted up with a bunch of her "friends," and gone outside, she'd definitely want to make sure they knew she was friendly when she came back.

As Chris, Jeanne and Dale walked toward the church, Chris wondered how long this cozy little arrangement could or would last. Even if they avoided a player---_which they hadn't_, she thought gleefully---sooner or later, the iron logic of the Program would force them to turn on each other. Only one could survive, and she fully intended that "one" to be her, Christine Hargensen. _After all, I deserve it! I'm the prettiest girl in my class, all the boys want me and even grown men drool over me! Why should some lesser person get to live on when__ I__ die? _

Dale opened the front door and they stepped into the sanctuary. Chris looked around curiously. Rachel Spies was apparently the person on guard at the door; she was holding what Chris recognized as a Japanese _katana_. She made a mental note. When she got the chance, she planned to appropriate that sword. While she had been well-served by her firearms, she was aware that a blade, unlike a gun, did not run out of ammunition or direct its vengeance a country mile away from the enemy.

Jessica Upshaw was sitting by a window, watching outside for enemies. Chris saw a pistol stuck through her waistband. At another window, Josie Vreck watched in another direction. He didn't appear to be armed, but Chris knew better than to take that at face value. By this time, checking for weapons was a reflex, just like being nervous when out in the open.

Chris heard sounds from above, and barely refrained from yanking out her revolver as Norma Watson came in. She had apparently been up on the belfry, and had a pair of binoculars slung around her neck. Chris figured that the binoculars might have been a "surprise," unless Norma had appropriated them somewhere along the way.

Don Farnham came up from the lower level, where he had apparently been looking around. His eyes widened when he saw Chris. "Hi, Chris! Glad to see you're still alive!"

At this, the others noticed Chris' entrance for the first time. She noted that the others' reaction wasn't precisely welcoming. "Uh---hi, everybody. I ran into Dale here, and he said I could come along. Is that all right?" She didn't miss the glances people exchanged.

Norma Watson finally spoke. "Only if you're _over_ being a spherical bitch, Christine." Her voice was hard and cold. "And I mean that."

"A 'spherical bitch?'" Chris didn't understand what her classmate was driving at.

"A 'spherical bitch' is a bitch any way you look at her, Christine. Ever since I've known you, you've been a nasty piece of work. Matter of fact, I'm surprised that you aren't playing. I'd have thought you'd be well up on the scoreboard by now."

Norma had hit the nail on the head, but Chris had years of experience conning people. "Norma! How can you say such a thing? I thought we were friends!" She teared up, and put a hitch into her voice. "First I wake up to find myself in this awful nightmare, and then I find that people hate me…" She sniffled and lowered her face, covering it with one hand. "Guys try to rape me or kill me, and even other girls---I can't trust _anybody_!" She let out an anguished-sounding howl, and burst out sobbing.

As she'd expected, her act fooled the guys---Dale came over and awkwardly patted her shoulder, and Don led her over to a pew, where she sat, shaking with simulated sobs. When she looked up, she noticed that the girls still looked skeptical, but their postures and expressions showed that they had softened their stance slightly. "Don't cry, Chris," Dale pleaded. "Look---we're all in an awful mess, but if we stay cool, trust each other and work together, I'm sure we can find a way out of this!"

Chris couldn't believe that anybody could be so naïve. The Program had been in place longer than she, or her parents, had been alive, and in all that time, nobody had ever escaped. She would much rather have never been in that situation, but she had coldly accepted that the only way off Matinicus Island lay over the dead bodies of her classmates. However, she was quite willing to play along---she'd played "good little girl" all her life for her parents and the other adult authorities; this was just a new role.

"You're right, Dale," Chris sniffled, "we've got to work together. There are actually people out there _playing_!" She put on a horrified expression. "Can you _believe_ it? Can you believe that there are people in our class who'd _kill their classmates_?" She shuddered theatrically, making sure that her breasts jiggled---nothing like that to distract male attention, after all. "I thought I knew these people!"

Rachel cleared her throat. "You know---I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that Carrie White's a player. If she got issued something good---most of us didn't---she could carve quite a swathe." Rachel's voice went grim. "And she's got some damn good reasons to hate all of us, doesn't she?"

"Really?" Dale looked slightly incredulous. "I know she's not the most popular kid in the school, but _hate_ us? Isn't that a little extreme?"

Wiping her face, Chris decided that Dale was going to be her first target when she made her move. Not just for that lovely, lovely MAC-10, but because in her view, he was much too stupid to live. Removing him from the breeding pool would only improve it.

Jessica sighed. "You don't understand, Dale. You weren't there for a lot of the worst of it. Also, you're guys, and guys do things differently---I should know, I have three brothers." She squared her shoulders, as though she was about to do a heavy job of work. "Guys might tease her a little, but they had their own things to do, and guys usually---I emphasize usually---observe some unwritten limits, if only because they know that going too far can get them their asses kicked." She smiled bitterly. "Girls are a lot nastier in a lot of ways---and Chris, here, would know all about that, _wouldn't you_, dear?" All of a sudden Jessica's pistol was in her hands, aimed right between Chris' startled eyes. "You were the ringleader in a lot of nastiness, weren't you?"

Chris' mind reeled with shock. She wasn't stupid, though, and knew how she could fight back effectively. "Oh? You're not exactly innocent yourself, are you, Jessica Upshaw? I remember a lot of the stuff you've done!" As the others stared, wide-eyed, Chris continued: "Like the time you set Henry Stampel up! You said you'd go out on a date with him, but when he showed up at your place, you told him that he had to be an idiot to think he had a chance with you, and then you had your brothers run him off!"

Jessica stepped back, shock in her face, as both of the boys started giving her very hard looks. "Is this true?" asked Dale, his hand on the butt of his MAC-10. "Did you do that?"

Jessica turned pale. "Yes---yes, I did. I'm not claiming that my hands are clean. But Chris here was always in on the worst stuff!"

"Look," Chris spoke up. "None of us here are angels. I'm sure there are people who hate every one of us. But _we don't deserve this, damn it!_" As she spoke, she felt a little shocked to find that she meant every word of it. "I'll admit I did some rotten things! I did things I shouldn't have! But I don't deserve to _die_ for it!" She looked around the room challengingly. "Who here _has_ absolutely clean hands? Who can claim they never did_ anything _they're not really proud of?" Silence met her challenge, as she had known it would. If anybody had tried to claim innocence, she knew more than enough about them to deflate them in a hurry. Dale and Don had both been involved in a wave of vandalism, and had joy-ridden several cars without their owners' consent, or licenses. As for the girls---none of _them_ had refrained from tormenting Carrie, and Norma, at least, had always been right behind Chris, encouraging her to go farther and farther humiliating one of the people that she and her friends called "Mortimer Snerds."

Rachel finally broke the silence. "Okay. You have a point. Right now, the thing we have to do is to keep our cool. What happened at home doesn't matter. You can stay, Chris."

Chris covered her face with her hands and wept aloud. Behind her hands, her face twisted into an evil smile. _Come into our parlor, Madame Spider, said the flies_…


	15. Chapter 15 Bishop Takes Pawn

Battle Royale, Maine---Chapter 15

By Technomad

Bishop and Rook

Carrie White was feeling uncharacteristically good. So far, she had not only managed to survive deep into the Program, but she had racked herself up quite a score. Eight kills, so far! _That ought to show those worthless sinners that I was a worthwhile human being, _she thought gleefully_._ The fact that she had good reasons to hate her classmates was icing on the cake.

She was sitting in a little clear spot in the woods, her back to a tall tree, methodically checking over her trusty Uzi. Her lifelong habit of meticulous cleanliness was serving her well, and combined with the handy instruction manual that had come with the gun, she had its internal workings gleaming and clean, ready to be reassembled.

Of course, she hadn't really relaxed her vigilance. While she worked, she watched her surroundings, and listened very carefully for any sounds that might indicate someone sneaking up on her while she was preoccupied. When she'd snapped the last component into place and experimentally racked the bolt back and forth before slapping in a full magazine of ammunition, she felt much safer, even though the Uzi was not her only weapon. _Not any more_! She'd had the revolver she'd taken from Steve Deighan ready by her side, and if she'd needed to, she could have been fighting in a second.

Nobody had interrupted her, though, and she took a swig from a water bottle. The water felt cool and refreshing going down her throat. She could hear birds singing, so she knew that she was alone. Then a premonitory crackle told her that the evening's "homeroom" was just about to start.

Carrie took out the list of her classmates and marked off the names of the dead, and marked off the off-limits areas on her map. Apparently, she was the only one up on the scoreboard since the last announcements. _Are the other players dead?_ She considered the idea, but dismissed it quickly. Just for starters, Chris Hargensen's death had not yet been announced. _If anybody other than me's playing, I'd bet that __Chris__ is---bitch, slut, harlot, Jezebel! _ Carrie thought bitterly.

In one part of her mind, Carrie acknowledged that a lot of what she had done was murder. While she'd had no choice in the matter, and knew that she had nothing to fear from man's law, she still wondered if, on the Day of Judgement, she'd have some of the deaths she'd inflicted held against her. The unsleeping, vigilant part of her that she couldn't lie to pointed out that some of the people she'd killed had done nothing more than stand aside when she was being tormented by the bullies who'd made her life a living hell.

If she ran into Christine Hargensen, though…her lips twisted in a mirthless smile. If she and Chris came into contact, Carrie wouldn't care if Chris was kneeling and begging for her life---Carrie fully intended to take her time, if at all possible. If Carrie had anything to say about it, Chris' death wouldn't be quick or easy.

After all, Chris had had everything Carrie wanted, including plenty of money, a nice home, a loving father and mother, and she still found nothing better to do with her time than torment Carrie and others like her. _What was wrong with her?_ Carrie had sometimes wondered just what had gotten into Christine to make her such a hateful creature.

Off in the distance, a spatter of gunfire reminded Carrie that the game was by no means over yet, and confirmed that, yes, others were also playing. She recognized a shotgun's deep boom, twice, along with what sounded like pistol fire. She had heard shotguns before, many times, during hunting season around Chamberlain. Her home was not far from the edge of town, and there were plenty of avid hunters in the area.

She considered going and seeing what was going on, but rejected the idea quickly. After all, this was the Program. The nature of the Program was "all against all," and even the closest groups of friends could and would eventually turn on each other, driven by fear for their own lives.

Carrie wondered how that would be, to have friends. She had often watched, her gut twisting in helpless, hopeless envy, as the other girls gathered in giggling groups, whispering to each other about something or other, their eyes gleaming with mischief. She had so longed to join them, but she knew perfectly well that she'd be unwelcome. And she knew that a lot of the things they were whispering and giggling about were things that Momma would have called sinful. If she'd managed to make a friend or two, Momma would have been sure to find out, somehow or other, and that would have been the end of that.

_Little did Momma know_, Carrie thought_, how useful her injunctions against friends would turn out to be_! Of course, Momma would probably disapprove strenuously of the Program as well, if only because it was on "the devil-box," to use her term for TV. Well, Carrie had plans for dear Momma, if it were the Lord's will that she survive the Program. Program winners got stipends, and could live independently if they chose to.

For a few minutes, Carrie allowed herself to drift off into a pleasant reverie of what her life could be like, if she won the Program and got free of Momma once and for all. She could take an apartment of her own, and decorate it with the things _she_ liked, instead of following Momma's mania for religious knicknacks. If the stipend she got wasn't large enough, she could earn extra money sewing for people. She had noticed, when she and the other girls had been in Home Economics together, that she was a much better seamstress than they were. She had been startled to find out that other girls weren't set to sewing as soon as they could physically operate the machine---why, some girls didn't know _anything at all_ about it, and had to be shown how by the teacher!

Carrie figured that part of why she had taken so easily to guns was because she'd long since become familiar with machinery, thanks to years of having to deal with Momma's cranky old Singer. Oddly enough, Momma didn't blame Carrie when the Singer became difficult, but helped her set it to rights. After the first few times, Carrie could have taken the old machine apart and re-assembled it blindfolded, the way she had heard Army recruits learned to do with their rifles.

And, speaking of rifles…Carrie snapped back to where she was when she heard a crackling and rustling in the bushes near her. She looked toward the noise, and saw Stella Horan, stumbling along, gasping and panting. She had a pair of nunchaku in her hand, and would occasionally swing at enemies that seemed to only exist in her head.

Carrie smiled grimly. Stella Horan hadn't been at the forefront of her tormentors, but she was far from guiltless. She had stood behind Chris Hargensen, or at best had turned a blind eye to Chris' and her crowd's shenanigans. Payback would be sweet, oh, yes, it would!

Stella stared wildly when Carrie stood up and showed herself. "Hi, Stella. Remember me? The frump? The one you said had her picture in the dictionary, under 'unattractive?'" The shock of seeing Carrie appear as if from nowhere had apparently snapped Stella back to somewhere near reality. She looked at the Uzi Carrie was levelling at her, and her eyes grew very wide.

"Carrie---I was just joking! Come on---you can take a joke, can't you?" Those were the last words out of Stella Horan's mouth, as Carrie took aim and let fly with a precise burst of four shots. Stella's head seemed to fly apart, as two 9mm Parabellum hollow-points caught her in the face, expanding as they tore through her skull and blasted out the back along with a huge gush of blood and brains. The other two bullets took her in the throat, and even more blood splashed out. Stella fell backwards, and Carrie was pretty sure that she was dead before she hit the ground. Not that Carrie really cared. Carrie would have felt awful about killing a dog or a cat, or any animal, come to it, but all her classmates had long since forfeited any right to pity as far as she was concerned.

"You lose," Carrie whispered. "And, no, I can't 'take a joke.' Or at least the number of them you all played on me over the years. I know of all sorts of things I have to do in this life, ranging from going to that hell-school to playing in this hell-game, but 'taking a joke' when I don't want to somehow never got on the list." Carrie sighed. "My sense-of-humor's busted."


	16. Chapter 16 Rooks and Knights

Battle Royale Maine-Rooks and Knights

Chapter 16

By Technomad

Sue Snell

Some time later, Sue, Tom and Billy came to an unspoken decision, and flopped down in a sheltering thicket. Sue looked longingly at the open space nearby-the fog had long since burned off, and it was a warm day. If it hadn't been for being in the Program, she would have thought about going out and lying in the sun; she was a Maine girl and appreciated every hour of warm sunlight that she got.

She knew that lying out in the open when in the Program was to beg for death, though. She hadn't watched many iterations of the Program on TV; her parents didn't care for it, and would turn the channel to something else when it was shown. Even so, though, not all of her classmates' parents had that attitude, and she had heard enough discussions of the Program at school and elsewhere to have a good idea that showing herself in the open was suicide. All it would take would be one opportunistic player, or even one person driven mad by the stress and armed with an effective weapon, and she'd be one of the next names that Miss Desjardins would read off during her "homeroom" announcements.

Susan Snell had no intention of letting that happen. With that thought, she gave the two boys she'd teamed up with a long, considering look. She knew that sooner or later, the iron logic of the Program would force them to turn on each other. Even if they managed to be the last three people alive, only one could walk off the island in the end.

Of course, there was every good chance that they'd run across more players, and if she played her cards right, she might be able to finagle things so that she survived without having to betray her companions, or wonder when one of them was going to decide to betray the others. Tommy Ross would normally never do such a thing, but the Program was, by definition, not "normal" in any sense of the word-and people did odd things when under severe stress.

Billy Nolan had been a good companion to have, so far, but Sue trusted him less than she did Tommy. While he was affable at the moment, she knew that he was still a hoodlum at heart, and those guys had a bad attitude toward anybody they didn't think was as tough as they were. And that went double, or more, for women.

Part of Sue was horrified at the turn her thoughts had taken. She thought of herself as a good girl, and a good person. How could she be thinking about turning against her companions? To ask the question was to answer it, she concluded rapidly. This was the Program. Only one could survive.

She ran her finger around the explosive, remote-controlled collar that bound her to the Program as surely as a slave collar marked its wearer as a slave in ancient times. Like a slave, her choices were circumscribed by what her masters wished, and her own opinions didn't enter into it. Had she been a slave in the old days, she might have had to do all sorts of things she didn't want to do, ranging from serving as her master's sexual toy to flogging other slaves. She had read more than enough about ancient times to know that much.

Instead of that, she was forced into a situation where she had to kill, even her best friends if necessary, or be killed. She wasn't sure that this was much of an improvement.

And the niggling temptation came again. The boys both trusted her, and in the Program, trust could be fatal. She had a vision of herself, walking off the island, going home, with the privileges given a Program winner. She could leave Chamberlain—that would be a good idea, what with her whole class being dead—and live on her own, if she wanted to. She thought that an apartment of her own in some bigger town, like, say, Portland, would be a very nice thing to have. And a car! A car of her very own! She wasn't quite old enough yet to have a driver's license, but she knew that if she lived, she'd be old enough in a few months.

Program winners were also given scholarships. Sue knew that her parents had put aside money for her education, but she found that she liked the idea of not having to answer to them. Her mother, in particular, had some old-fashioned ideas about what a girl should and should not study, and they had clashed before on Sue's choice of electives in school. Not having to listen to her mother's harangues would be nice…

Sue shook her head violently, but the tempting thoughts refused to let her alone. She looked at the boys speculatively. They hadn't noticed the looks she was giving them, being absorbed in watching the surrounding bush for potential enemies. _It would be easy, so easy_…She drew her pistol.

Tommy turned. "Checking your gun, Sue?" he asked, giving her a smile. "Good idea! Nothing more embarrassing than getting into a firefight and having your piece jam on you." Sue felt herself blushing, her face feeling hot. She was horribly ashamed of the temptation she had suffered…and doubly ashamed for the fact that it wouldn't go away! Even as she shoved her pistol back down into her waistband where she could reach it easily, she shuddered to realize that the temptation to pull it out and backshoot her two companions was still there, in the back of her mind.

Up ahead, Billy Nolan had come across something. He turned and signalled silently with a wave of his arm. Tommy moved up, and then Sue, both of them keeping a wary eye out for possible danger. A few days in the Program were a good substitute for military basic training, at least as far as staying alert at all times went.

When she saw what Billy had run across, Sue's eyes went wide. He had stumbled into a nest of people who were obviously hiding from the Program. Lennie Brock was staring at them, wide-eyed, clutching a fork-like martial-arts weapon that she recognized as a _jitte_ from a martial-arts magazine her father sometimes read.

Compared to the guns that she and her companions were carrying, a jitte was laughably inadequate, but as Sue looked over the others who were hiding out with him, she came to the conclusion that he was, in comparison to them, well-armed. Josie Vreck didn't seem to have anything, and had pulled down a tree branch and made it into a crude club. Sally McManus had a rope coiled around her body, over one shoulder and down by her waist, and Sue knew that she hadn't had one before-could that have been her "surprise?" Frank Grier clutched a pot lid, of all things.

"Are-are you here to kill us? Are you playing?" That was Sally. She was literally shaking in terror, unable to take her eyes off their guns.

_I may be, dear, but not right at the moment_, flickered through Sue's mind. Out loud, she said: "Of course not! What sort of people do you take us for? We've teamed up and we're trying to find a way to escape!"

That got their attention. "Escape? How?"

Tommy shrugged his shoulders. "We're working on that. You want to join up with us?"

That provoked some muttering among their new-found classmates. "Thanks, but we had another plan. You see this?" Josie Vreck pulled out the map of Matinicus Island he had been issued. "See here? There's a church. We were thinking of holing up there."

Sue, Tom and Billy looked at each other in disbelief. Billy finally broke the silence. "Uh—I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but that church almost certainly already has people in it. We've been skulking around this island long enough for someone, or several someones, to have forted up there."

"Well, what do you suggest?" snarled Lennie Brock, waving his _jitte_ around. "Look at this crap they gave us! Josie here got a goddamn _paper fan_, for God's sake! At least you guys got guns!"

"I didn't," Tommy said. "I got a bullhorn. I took this gun off one of the Garson brothers."

"How did you get them to agree to trade?" When everybody turned to look at her, Sally realized just what she had said. "Oh. Right. Stupid question. You got the drop on them somehow?"

"It helped that they'd apparently helped themselves to some booze they'd found and were reeling drunk." At this, everybody laughed ruefully. The Garson brothers' love for anything alcoholic was common knowledge in Chamberlain, along with their sinister reputation.

"Look, if you want to go off and try this church place, go ahead," Billy finally said, "but I don't think we want to do that. It's a little too obvious, if you know what I mean. Just the sort of place they'd love to put off-limits, and if you're depending on it, all of a sudden you're out here in the cold, cruel world again."

"It also occurs to me that just because someone's holed up there doesn't mean he or she—or _they_—aren't playing. You could be walking into a trap." Tommy looked grim. "Me, I want to stay outside where I can at least see someone coming before they get to me."

"What else can we do?" Sally looked utterly defeated, as did her companions. "Do you have any brilliant suggestions? Sooner or later, out here we're going to run into real players. We're just lucky to have stayed alive so long."

"I know. There's at least one person running around this island with what sounds to me like a machine gun," Billy answered. "Go on, and good luck to you."

The others moved on out, heading in the direction the map said the church was. Then, in the distance, they heard someone shooting. Everybody hit the ground. After a few minutes, when they didn't hear any more gunfire, they got to their feet, looked around, and the two groups separated.


	17. Chapter 17 The Endgame Opening Moves

Battle Royale Maine, Chapter 17

By Technomad

The Endgame-Opening Moves

Chris was lying on one of the pews in the Matinicus church, feigning sleep. Most of the others were asleep, too-she could hear soft snoring, and occasional moans. She didn't think that the moans meant that anybody was getting it on; they sounded to her distinctly like someone having a nightmare. She knew _that_ sound from very occasional sleepovers with other girls, and trips to youth camp where she had to share living quarters with others.

She peered at the glow-in-the-dark wristwatch she, like all of them, had been issued with by the authorities. It showed 11:53, just short of midnight. Unlike the others, she hadn't slept a wink. Her mind was racing with plans and schemes to take out the others in the church.

Not long after she'd been accepted, a large group had shown up outside, begging for shelter. They apparently hadn't been issued weapons, but "surprises," and, unsurprisingly, had opted not to play. They'd holed up together for a while, but had finally decided to try the church. Chris had expected them to be sent on their merry way, but the softheaded fools who seemed to be calling the shots for what she was thinking of as "the church gang" had let them in.

Chris knew that a group this large would inevitably begin to turn on each other. If there were no kills in a given twenty-four-hour period, everybody's collar would go off at once, and she absolutely did not intend to go out that way. After all, the mantra was: "Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse" and having your head blown off your shoulders by an explosive charge would make the last part of it un-do-able.

Unable to stand lying there on the cold hard wood any more, Chris got up, stretching and yawning as though she were just awakening. She was used to feigning sleep, and could fool anybody who didn't know her really well-and she'd made sure that nobody knew her _really_ well. She had generally avoided sleepover parties, although they sounded like fun. The "get together in PJs and gush out every thought you ever had" aspect made her nervous. She was self-aware enough to know fully well that if she ever told the other girls how she really felt about things, she'd no longer be the Queen Bee. A Queen Bee only kept her throne, after all, by the consent of her peers. If the other girls had turned on her, she could have become as outcast as Carrie White, at least in girl society. _Of course, I'd still have the guys_…but it wouldn't be the same. Without her "Queen Bee" status, Chris literally wouldn't have known who she was any more.

Unless, of course, "who she was" was "Program winner!" Since only one person per state ever got to that status in a year, there weren't ever very many around. They often didn't seem to last long, but while they lived, they had it made. And Chris fully intended to win.

Yawning again, Chris picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and made her way to the stairs up to the steeple. Jessica Upshaw was up there, on watch, and nodded when Chris greeted her. Then they heard a crackle. Jessica whispered: "Homeroom. I'm going to be marking things down."

Miss Desjardin's voice rolled out over the dark island. "Hel-_lo_, Matinicus Island! Wakey, wakey, little warriors! It's time for your favorite show…that is, if you like living…_Midnight Homeroom_!" A giggle, then: "I'll update you on which of your classmates haven't made it in this far, shall I?"

Jessica growled softly. Chris understood completely. Oblivious, Miss Desjardin went on: "Ladies first, of course! We've said farewell forever to Myra Crewes and Stella Horan. Among the boys, only one loss…and it's not a big one…Dave Bracken!"

"So it goes," whispered Chris to herself. She didn't care about the others, but she'd known many of them since kindergarten. A world without so many familiar faces would be strange. A world without Christine Hargensen in it, on the other hand, was unthinkable. She resolved to prevent such a calamity from ever happening, and smiled to herself at the thought.

"Moving right along to the next part of our program," came Miss Desjardin's voice, "we come to the new restricted areas. Get out your maps and pencils, little warriors! Ignorance, in this, is no excuse!" Chris already had her pencil and map out, and had fished her flashlight out of her bag. "Starting at 0100 hours, E-5 and H-3. At 0500, A-4 and G-2. At 0800, B-5 and G-5. Stay tuned-next homeroom's at 0900, and you don't want to miss all the fun and excitement here at…Program Central!" The loudspeakers clicked, and silence reigned over the island once again. Chris threw back her head; she was up high enough that she could easily smell the sea-breezes, and for a second, she was reminded irresistably of trips to the shore with her family when she was younger. _Will sea breezes mean the Program to me from now on_, she wondered.

Jessica had been marking her own map. "Okay, we're still good at least till 0900. Want to go downstairs and check on things?" Apparently Jessica had accepted her, and Chris nodded, keeping her inner smile to herself. _Of course I'll check on things, dear…and if I get the opportunity, I'll thin out the competition a little! Can't take too many chances in this game, after all_…

Moving as softly as she could, Chris went down the stairs into the sanctuary. She glanced toward the front door, and her blood ran cold. The front door was standing wide open, with moonlight pouring in, and she knew perfectly well that it had been shut and guarded when she had lain down earlier. _What happened to the guard?_

She crept closer, and her eyes went wide when she saw what was Gault, who had apparently been on guard, was lying there, dead, her throat cut. The pool of blood looked black in the ghostly moonlight. Suddenly terrified, Chris looked around…and saw Freddy Holt grinning at her maniacally in a shaft of light from a sanctuary window.

"Oh my God! Freddy! Get up, everybody, Freddy's playing!" Chris' terrified shriek echoed off the sanctuary's rafters, and she ducked aside just in time as a blast from the sawed-off shotgun Freddy was pointing roared out. She could hear the pellets bouncing off the church wall.

The shot and Chris' shout alerted everybody, and people started up, shouting. Freddy let out an insane laugh and fired again, panicking everybody who wasn't already panicked. More shots were fired, as the people who had guns started shooting blindly.

Chris had been horrified, but when she leaped aside, she tripped over something and found herself flat on the floor. The impact cleared her head, and she realized quickly that flat on the floor was by far the safest place to be; people were screaming and she heard several yells of "I'm hit! I'm hit!"

_Of all the damn irony_…Chris had discounted Freddy Holt completely. A ninety-eight-pound weakling, with a nose that seemed to make up about half of his body mass, "The Beak" was almost a male counterpart to Carrie White. Shy, clumsy, weak and no good at sports, he was treated with patronizing contempt by most of the boys. Chris had lost count of the times he'd been given a "wedgie," or been pantsed, or thrown into the girls' washroom, by people like the late, unlamented Garson brothers.

Well, it looked like the shoe was on the other foot, and the bottom rail was on top with a vengeance, as Chris' Southern mother liked to say! From her vantage point on the floor, Chris noticed that the Beak was at an advantage; anything that moved was a fair target for him, but the others were apparently shooting at each other, not sure where the danger was coming from. Even when the Beak was clearly reloading, people were shooting almost at random, and more than one howl or scream showed that some of the bullets were finding living targets.

Chris decided that this was working out just right. She had planned to figure out a way to take out the "church gang," but hadn't come up with any workable plans. There were too many of them, and they didn't trust her much. Now they were apparently taking each other out, and she hadn't had to so much as pull a trigger! She could have hugged herself with sheer glee. Every one of her classmates that died was one obstacle the fewer to the life she wanted: off the island, a Program winner and free to do exactly as she, Christine Hargensen, damn well pleased.

Around her, Chaos reigned supreme. That damned fool, Don Farnham, had apparently been issued a flare gun, and had fired it; the tinder-dry wood of the inside of the church had caught fire instantly when the white-hot magnesium/phosphorus hit it, providing a little lurid light for the proceedings. The Beak was crouched down behind a pew, alternating between shooting at anybody he could see and breaking open his shotgun to reload it. Chris had to admit, he had talent; he had hit several people already. At least he couldn't see her easily from where he was!

The others were panicked and firing wildly. Chris saw Dale Norbert spraying-and-praying with his MAC-10, and as she watched, he managed to hit Rachel Spies, who was already bleeding from a near-miss by the Beak. Rachel collapsed, spewing blood everywhere and dropping her sword. Chris shook her head in wonder. _Who but an idiot would bring a sword to a gunfight_?

Finally, things quieted down, mostly because people were either hurt and down, or had to stop to reload. Chris looked toward the fire, and her eyes went very wide. It was very close to where she knew the propane tank outside was, and flames were licking around the pipes that brought the propane in to the church to heat it!

"Oh my _God_! Fire! _Fire_! We've got to _get out of here_!" At Chris' scream, panic erupted again, as people scrambled for the door, only to jam it with a tangled scrum of bodies, cursing and struggling and clawing at each other. Chris saw her opportunity and took it; she shot the Beak down, snarling "And this is for _you,_ you murderous piece of _shit_!" She actually rather admired him for causing so much damage, but she had an image to uphold.

Unfortunately, nobody noticed, being too occupied with the struggle to escape. Chris didn't even try to get through the door, but turned to a nearby window. She threw her bag through, smashing the glass, which let the night breezes in and made the flames burn even brighter. Grabbing a cushion off one of the chairs, she cleared away the broken glass on the bottom of the window, and made ready to escape through it.

Just as she was halfway through, there came a coughing roar, a huge wave of heat, and Chris felt herself flying end-over-end through the air. She didn't feel it when she landed.


	18. Chapter 18

Battle Royale, Maine

Chapter 18

Endgame In Motion

By Technomad

Sue Snell

Sue had been sitting up with the boys, waiting for "homeroom," and after she had finished marking the new danger zones, and checking off the dead from her list, she stayed awake; it was her turn to stay on watch. Billy and Tommy nestled down in some piles of leaves and soon were snoring. She envied them. The Program was an energy-sapping environment, and the bread they had been given wasn't enough. Her stomach rumbled as she sat back with her back against a sturdy tree-trunk. She knew she couldn't keep watch in all directions at once, but with the bole of a tree against her back, she had some protection against being shot in the back, at least.

She sighed, looking up at the stars. They glittered overhead, beautiful, out of reach and utterly indifferent to the drama unfolding itself on Matinicus Island. To her, they were like the viewing audience that would be watching their struggles.

A spasm of hatred shook her for a second, and she gripped the butt of her pistol so hard that she was a little surprised that she didn't break it_. We didn't deserve this! Damn it, we __didn't deserve it__!_ She thought about the times she had asked about the Program, and her elders' incomprehension that anybody could question it.

_"Why, Susan," they'd said, "would you prefer returning to the __old__ ways? Back in those days, every town had its annual Lottery. In the Lottery, every family drew a lot, and one would draw the Black Spot. Then every member of __that__ family would draw, and the one who drew the Black Spot then would be stoned to death by the whole town. You wouldn't want __that__, would you?"_

_ "No, but-"_

_ "At least with the Program, the risk of a little child being killed is gone. Only ninth-graders are eligible, and only one class per state per year. Some of the smaller states even combine their Programs, so that Vermont, for example, combines with New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Otherwise they'd lose too many children."_

_ "But-"_

_ "After all, the Program, or the Lottery before it, is a tradition that predates independence. Without it, things would spin out of control into __absolute chaos__!"_

At that point, Sue had cut things short; it was clear that they were dealing with a failure to communicate. Her parents, and the other adults in her life, could no more imagine life without the Program or some analogous event than they could understand Chinese. She had shrugged her shoulders and put her trust in the laws of averages to keep her and her classmates safe. Unfortunately, she and her class had drawn the equivalent of the Black Spot-and now they were _on_ the spot.

And unlike the old Lotteries, where only one died at the hands of all, here, all but one would die. With that thought, Sue reluctantly returned to the thought that had grabbed her earlier: What would she do when or if it came down to her, Tommy and Billy?

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the two sleeping boys. It would be so easy to take them out…_so easy_…they trusted her, _didn't they_? Her lips curved in a smile that felt, from the inside, wonderfully evil. It was still a little too early to make a move, but more and more, she was thinking that if she wanted to survive-and she did, she really did; she had a lot of things she wanted to do with her life yet-she'd eventually have to take her companions out.

She knew that Tommy Ross would not make the first move. He was a gentleman, and a gentle man. He'd killed—but so had she, and Sue honestly thought that he regretted what he'd done a lot more than she did. If it did come down to just the two of them, Sue thought that he'd likely just go off quietly and put a bullet through his brain, letting her be the winner. But she couldn't count on that happening.

Billy Nolan, on the other hand, was someone that Sue felt she could do well without, if it came down to it. While he'd been a useful companion, and was a superlative fighter, Sue was under no illusions whatever about what he would do, should it come down to the three of them. Billy Nolan would cheerfully blow her and Tommy away, and she doubted that he'd lose a minute's sleep over it afterward.

So if it came down to just the three of them, as soon as she was sure that was the case, Sue decided that she'd make the first move. She knew that she had advantages in that sphere-the boys would not expect her, a girl, to do any such thing. Even though they'd seen girls playing, she knew that Tommy and Billy still saw her through the "good girl" lens. The idea that she might be evil enough to backshoot them would never enter their heads. _Until my bullets do_, she thought with a deliciously evil shiver.

She lifted her pistol, sighting it experimentally on one of the boys…and a soft _thump_ and shock wave startled her into lowering the gun. Off in the distance, there was suddenly a flickering light. Both boys were instantly awake, and she shoved the pistol into her waistband just as if she hadn't been seriously considering shooting them both in their sleep.

"What…the _blazes_…was that?" Sue had the impression that if she hadn't been present, or hadn't been a girl, Tommy's question would have been quite a bit more pungently phrased. She smiled to herself; boys' belief in girls' innocence and ignorance of the wicked ways of the world generally amused her.

"Don't know. I'd say that someone got creative. _Real_ creative." Billy shook his head in rueful admiration. "It kind of looks like a propane-tank explosion, and smells like it too." Sue sniffed the air experimentally, and, sure enough, there was a whiff of the stuff they put into gas so that leaks would be detected.

"Want to go see what happened?" Tommy got up, grabbing his bag and pulling out his pistol in a reflex burned in by the Program. Billy shook his head and grabbed Tommy.

"_Not _a good idea, man. Whoever set that off is very likely to be playing. You want to be silhouetted against a fire, with who-knows-who lurking in the shadows, ready to put a bullet or three into you?" Billy scowled. "In any case, I don't think there's anything we could do. The smart thing would be to wait till morning." He pulled out a map. "The fire, if that's what it is, isn't in any of the designated danger zones, so why don't we wait till dawn? I'm not wild about the idea of blundering around this place in the dark any more than I have to. Once we have daylight, we can figure out whether to go have a look or not."

Sue took another look at Billy. He might have been a hood, and his grades might have been lousy in school, but she had to admit that he had figured out what was wrong with running to the fire, before she or Tommy had. She abandoned the idea of backshooting her companions, at least for the present. Right now, they're still useful. Once it gets down to just us three, if it does…then it'll be time to move, and move fast. I do want to win this thing…

Sue's thoughts were interrupted by a huge yawn. Tommy gave her a concerned look. "It's about time we swapped off watch, isn't it?" He looked at his wristwatch. "Yeah. Lie down and get some sleep, Sue. I'm wide awake; I should be good for a few hours, so I'll be on watch. If I start drifting off, I'll wake Billy."

"Sounds good to me." Billy lay back down and curled up, and in a few minutes, his deep, regular breathing told Sue that he was asleep. Sue lay down obediently, but didn't think she could sleep a wink. She still thought that when, after what felt like no more than a second, she felt Tommy gently shaking her shoulder. Sitting up, she rubbed her sticky eyes, noticing that dawn was breaking; the sky was lighter than it had been, and off to the east, it was turning blue.

"It's getting on to sun-up, so I got you and Billy up." Tommy murmured. "It's about seven-thirty. Next 'homeroom' is in an hour and a half. Hungry?" At her nod, he handed her some bread. "Sorry it isn't more, or better. After you've eaten, we'll go see what caused that explosion we saw last night." He looked grim. "If a bunch of people are dead, we might be able to scavenge out of their bags."

"Sounds like a plan," Sue muttered. She flicked her eyes around, and saw no danger. "I've got to go behind the bushes. I'll be back in a second." Suiting action to words, she ducked behind a thick stand of brush. When she was done, she came out to find the boys waiting politely for her. "Okay. Let's go see what our idiot classmates did last night."


	19. Chapter 19 Endgame Goes Overtime

Battle Royale, Maine

Chapter 19

Endgame Continuing

by Technomad

Carrie White

Carrie had been sitting up, unable to sleep, when the explosion had rocked Matinicus Island. She had checked off the names of the dead on her class list, and nodded silently; the odds were looking better and better for her to survive the game. She knew she wasn't the only player, though, and she knew that the survivors were more and more likely to be playing.

She wondered if her "harmless victim" status would fool the remaining players long enough for her to get her Uzi out, or the other guns she had acquired. She rather doubted it; anybody who'd survived this far into a Program would have no illusions about the other people who'd survived. She patted her faithful Uzi, and smiled. With that firepower, she figured she still had the advantage.

When she felt the shock wave and heard the soft thump, she looked toward it. Her eyes went wide as she saw what had to be a huge fire, rapidly growing larger and larger. _Lord have mercy, what did those idiots do this time?_ she thought.

She considered going closer and seeing what had happened, but rapidly discarded the notion as foolish. _After all_, she reminded herself, _the light would show others where I am_! She snuggled down in her safe little nook; she had found a nice, sheltering spot under some bushes in a thick clump of woods, and settled in to wait for morning.

Some time later, she awoke from what felt like a very fitful sleep, rubbed her eyes, and looked around her. She shivered a little; it had been a cool Maine spring night, and her clothes were damp with dew. After ducking behind a bush to take care of necessities, she took out one of the bottles of water she had taken from her dead classmates, swigging it. She had read in a survival manual she had seen in the Chamberlain public library that the best way to carry water was internally. The stuff _was_ heavy…

In the distance, she heard the premonitory crackle from the loudspeakers that warned of an upcoming "homeroom." She took out her pencil and licked the tip, ready to take notes.

Miss Desjardin's voice, sounding rested and hale (_she_ hadn't had to spend the night curled up on the ground under a bush!) rang out over the island. "_Good _morning, Matinicus! Wakey, wakey, little warriors! I must say, your activity has really surprised me and pleased me! I _knew_ I could count on you to keep this game interesting! There's never been a dull moment, but last night topped it all!"

Carrie growled softly, imagining having _that idolatrous, misbelieving bitch_ at her mercy for a few minutes. She pictured levelling her Uzi and pulling the trigger, and watching as Miss Desjardin danced her last spastic dance while being ripped apart by a hail of 9mm bullets. However, that would have to wait.

"First, let's get to the names of those who are no longer with us," carolled Miss Desjardin. "Among the gentler sex, we've said farewell forever to Jeanne Gault, Sally McManus, Rachel Spies, Jessica Upshaw, and Norma Watson. Such heavy, _heavy_ losses, and all in one incident!" A chuckle. "See what you can do, if you just apply yourselves and use a little ingenuity?"

_Losses? No big ones from __my __point of view_, Carrie thought sardonically.

Oblivious to Carrie's thoughts, Miss Desjardin went on: "And among the boys, we've lost Lennie Brock, Donald Farnham, Frank Grier, Freddy Holt-he played remarkably well, I must admit; I lost a large bet by betting against him lasting so long or doing so well-Vic Mooney, Dale Norbert, Daniel Patrick and Josie Vreck."

Carrie crossed off the names of the dead, and her eyes went wide. This was getting close to the end! She wondered how many of the dead had been caught in the explosion she had heard, and made up her mind to go investigating; after all, if the dead had left anything behind, she might find something worth scavenging.

"Now, to wrap things up," came Miss Desjardin's voice, "we've got the newest off-limits areas to announce. At 0900, G-5 and D-2 are off-limits. At 1000 hours, you lose B-4. At 1100, you can say goodbye to F-2 and G-3. That's all for now, but don't go 'way…there's more coming at noon!" Another giggle, and the loudspeakers went silent.

_Ha bloody ha ha ha_, Carrie thought with a sour smile. _I'm splitting my sides_. She had to admit that if she hadn't been caught in this situation, she'd have been highly amused at watching her classmates dying in various ways. She remembered the ones she killed, and suppressed a giggle. The way some of them had begged…

Dismissing the deaths she had caused from her mind, she slung her bag over one shoulder, checked her Uzi to make sure that it was loaded, cocked and ready to fire with one pull of the trigger, and headed toward the place where she figured the explosion the previous night had happened. _That's probably what killed so many people_, she thought.

If she hadn't been in the Program, Carrie would have enjoyed the day enormously. Momma was nowhere nearby, the sun was shining, birds were singing, the air smelled pleasantly of the sea, and any of her classmates who came into view would shortly be dead, dead, dead!

After a few minutes (Matinicus was fairly small, and what with the forbidden zones, it wasn't far to anywhere) Carrie came out into a clear area, and saw what had blown up so spectacularly the night before. She could easily see that it had been a church, once…but that it had suffered a catastrophic explosion and fire. The ruins were still smoking, and there were flames licking at the remnants of the wooden walls, here and there.

Out in front of it, three people were standing, picking through the wreckage. She recognized all three of them-it was Susan Snell, the snotty whore, and that hoodlum Billy Nolan. Carrie's lips pulled back from her teeth in a silent snarl. She couldn't see who the third one was, but could tell it was a boy, and she knew that only two boys were alive. At first, she thought it might be Fred Overholt, who was very much one of Billy's crowd. Carrie wondered what Sue had given the two hoodlums to induce them to team up with her, not to mention keep them teamed together this late in the game, then shrugged her shoulders. She figured she knew what Sue had given them, and, in any case, she planned to kill them off, so what did it matter?

The other guy turned, and Carrie's eyes widened. That was Tommy Ross! She had always thought that Tommy was attractive, and, for a second, the necessity of killing him, or seeing him killed, tore at Carrie's heart. Then she hardened herself. She hadn't asked to be in the Program, and even though Tommy hadn't ever done anything to her, if he lived, she couldn't. The Program came down to kill…or be killed. And Carrie White had no intention of being killed.

Just then, all three of them looked up, but not toward where Carrie was standing, hidden by some bushes. They all grabbed for guns, as someone else came into the clearing.

Carrie's eyes narrowed. The newcomers were Donna Kellogg and Fred Overholt. She cast her mind back over the lists of the dead that had been read out. As far as she could remember, given that she really was short of sleep, everybody was accounted for. _Hail, hail, the gang's all here_, she thought sardonically.

Since nobody seemed to know that she was there, she settled back in to watch developments. This late in the Program, large groups, or meetings between groups, inevitably developed into firefights. She grinned reluctantly as she reflected that her friendless status had served her well; unlike the others in her class, she had no illusions about how trustworthy other people were, and was quite willing to shoot to kill.

_Who will start shooting first? _The question intrigued her, and she waited for developments.


	20. Chapter 20 Endgame Goes On

Battle Royale, Maine

Chapter 20

by Technomad

Christine Hargensen

Chris felt like she was swimming in a red haze. She hurt…hurt more than she ever had in her life. At first, she couldn't remember who she was, where she was, or what she was doing. Gradually, it all came back to her. As she came slowly back to consciousness, she remembered. The Program…Matinicus Island…Miss Desjardin …none of it made sense at first_. Was I having a nightmare about me and my classmates being in the Program? _

Slowly, she forced her eyes open. Nothing seemed to be in focus; everything was blurred, as though she were underwater. She didn't recognize anything. Experimentally, she tried to move, only to be greeted with fresh waves of pain. _Oh, God, it hurts! Daddy, make the pain go away!_ But there was some reason…some important reason she had to get moving.

As things came into focus, she could see where she had ended up. She had apparently been blown through the air when the church had exploded, and had landed in a thick clump of bushes, which had cushioned her fall a little. One of her eyes didn't seem to work, and she was covered with cuts and bruises. She shuddered when she managed to focus in enough to see that there were pieces of glass sticking out of her flesh here and there. She could feel that some of her teeth were missing. Her clothes were about half burned off her, and when she put an experimental hand up to her head, she found that her luxurious mane of light-brown hair had been all but burnt off. She shook her head experimentally, trying to clear it. _Guess I don't look so good any more…_

She peered through the branches, and her eye widened at what she saw. The church had been blown apart, and all that was left was a pile of burned lumber. There were bodies scattered everywhere, as well as other debris. Not far from her was a scorched bag, which she gradually recognized as one of the ones that had been issued to all the Program participants.

Nobody was nearby, so she slowly reached out and helped herself to the bag. Her head was clearing, but still not completely clear; she didn't dare try touching one whole side of her face, which had begun to hurt in a way that stood out even through the haze of pain she was still in. She experimentally wiggled her toes, and felt relieved when they did move; she had been afraid, from the way she felt, that she'd broken one or both legs. She had remembered that she was in the Program, and she knew that immobility, in the Program, was a death sentence, either at the hands of another participant looking for an easy kill, or at the hands of the Program itself, through being unable to escape a forbidden zone. She shuddered at the thought of having her head blown off her shoulders by her collar.

Chris heard voices. At first, she had not been able to hear much through the ringing in her ears, but as that subsided, she could hear people talking.

"Man, oh, _man_! What do you think happened?" That sounded a lot like Tommy Ross. Chris remembered, in that dim, distant time before she had been enmeshed in the Program, that she had considered Tommy Ross quite desirable. He had never paid her much attention, and she had thought about ways to snag him for herself, even if only to score off the other girls.

"Looks like someone got really creative. The whole area stinks of propane. Did they manage to set off the propane tank?" Chris recognized that voice as belonging to—of all people—Billy Nolan. She shook her head, despite the ringing in her ears that the motion caused. Billy Nolan was almost the polar opposite of Tommy Ross. Tommy was a good kid; her dad thought very highly of him, and had mentioned that he'd be someone that her dad would be comfortable with Chris dating. Billy Nolan, on the other hand, was the acknowledged head of the Chamberlain hood squad. What in the world could they be doing together?

"Yeah, I'd say that's what happened. Someone might have tried using the propane supply as fuel, and got it wrong. And then-BOOM!" Chris smiled sourly to herself. And that was Susan Snell, the hypocritical little whore. Acts like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but she's no different from the rest of us! Chris sneered.

Chris watched as some other people came into view. She could see Donna Kellogg, who had been one of her crowd back before the Program, and Fred Overlock, who was one of Billy Nolan's chums. They were also looking at the destruction.

"Nobody could have survived that!" opined Fred. He shook his head in reluctant respect. "Whoever did that probably took out more people than anybody else has!"

"I wonder who's left?" Sue was sticking close to Tommy and Billy; she didn't seem to trust Donna or, especially, Fred. Chris smiled rather sourly to herself. _Guess Sue's not quite as dumb as I thought she was…but then, that would be impossible, wouldn't it? Even __Carrie White__ would know better than to trust Fred! Of course, she does seem to trust Billy_…Chris shook her head. She still wasn't thinking as clearly as she was used to.

"It's just before noon 'homeroom,' said Tommy, looking at the watch he'd been issued with. "We might be the only ones left." He quirked a grin. "I wonder who was betting on us lasting this long?"

Chris thought about that. By this time, she was feeling more-or-less back to normal, save for the pain. She knew that betting on the Program was by no means unknown, although, of course, _sub rosa_ in states like Maine where gambling was prohibited officially. She would have given a lot for a list of the odds; she knew from things her dad had said when he didn't think Chris could overhear that bookmakers were generally pretty good judges of such things. _But then, they have to be, don' t they? Otherwise they'd be out of business! _ She nodded; that made perfect sense.

As though the words had made it real, the loudspeakers crackled, and Miss Desjardin's voice echoed out over Matinicus: "High noon, little warriors, and time for homeroom! You've been awfully quiet, but after that magnificent performance last night, nobody's blaming you! No deaths to report!"

"Does that mean there's just us left?" Billy pulled out what had to be his class list, peering at it. "Damn! Except for two, we're what there is!"

"So we are!" Donna was looking at her own list. She looked at the others, and Chris could see a very calculating look come over her face. Chris knew that look. It meant that Donna was planning something, and knowing dear Donna, whatever she was planning was something that the others weren't going to like.

_And here I thought I might have to take them out_…Chris sat back, meditatively picking slivers of broken glass out of her arms, face and neck, and settled in to watch developments. As she watched, she remembered the bag she'd found, and went to open it. She nearly squealed in delight before she remembered where she was and what she was doing. It had been Don Farnham's, and his MAC-10 was in there! She quickly checked, and found that she had several full magazines of ammunition! _Ten, at least!_

I guess he didn't have to do much shooting, did he? With Jeanne right there with her collar detector, he could avoid fighting if he wanted to, and nobody sane would have been interested in getting into a firefight with him!

Chris thought that she'd heard a submachine gun firing, and wondered if she was wrong. _Could Don have had to do some fighting_? She knew she wasn't the only player out there, after all; there had been deaths reported that she knew she'd had nothing at all to do with. Somebody, or several somebodies, had to have been playing. If any of them were still alive, the game was a long way from over.

On the speakers, Miss Desjardin went on: "As of 1300 hours, sector D-4 will be off-limits. At 1400, you'll lose G-4 and C-3. That's all, but stay tuned for more updates! I do hope to have more exciting news to report at my next broadcast, or even announce a winner! It's all up to you, so don't disappoint me!"

Meanwhile, things had just become very interesting. Donna had apparently come to a conclusion-the conclusion being "if I take these others down, I'm likely to be the winner!" She yanked out an automatic pistol, and started shooting wildly.

Fred had trusted her, the damned fool, and he went down with two bullets in his midsection before he could react. The others hadn't been quite so trusting, and they leaped away, pulling out guns of their own and returning fire. Shortly, all four of them were behind bushes or piles of debris, leaving poor Fred screaming and bleeding his life out in the open.

Sue was flat on her belly behind a bush, peering through it and aiming a pistol where she knew that Donna was hiding. As Chris watched, Sue squeezed off a couple of shots. Meanwhile, Tommy took advantage of her covering fire, moving forward to a bit of cover closer to Donna's position.

Chris nodded approvingly. Tommy had either learned fast, or had been watching shows like _Combat_ carefully before the Program. With Donna pinned down by Sue's shooting, Tommy could move closer…and finish the bitch off! Of course, if the Power Trio happened to collect a few bullets in their turn, that'd make Chris' inevitable victory all the easier!

Billy Nolan saw what Tommy was doing, and tried to do the same, but Donna spotted him. Donna apparently wasn't much of a shot, but she did manage to hit Billy, bringing him down with a nasty wound in his shoulder. He crumpled, groaning, cradling his incapacitated arm and dropping his gun.

The distraction he provided gave Tommy the chance he needed. He was just on the other side of Donna's cover, and leaped over it with a shout of triumph. Donna's scream of "Not me! _Not me_!" was drowned out in the roar of Tommy's pistol, but she got in a shot as she died that caught Tommy through one lung.

Donna was dead; Chris could see her brains in the huge hole Tommy's pistol had made. Billy was down with a ruined arm. Tommy was down, coughing blood. That idiot Sue Snell was the only one left standing. Chris figured that this was the time for her to make her move. She stood up experimentally, and found, to her delight, that she could move and walk. She cocked the MAC-10, and stepped out of concealment.

"Hello, everybody!" she said. "Remember me? Your old friend, Christine Hargensen?" Everybody gaped at her like she was a ghost. "Oh, you forgot me!" she fake-pouted. "That makes me so sad! However, I didn't forget you! I have something here for you all. Something extra special and wonderful, that you'll remember as long as you live!"

Sue reacted first, squeezing off several shots. Unfortunately, for her at least, her aim was off, and they all went wide. Chris aimed the MAC-10 and squeezed the trigger. It bucked and yammered, spraying bullets wildly, but they were mostly aimed in the right direction, and Sue couldn't have avoided them all any more than she could have avoided getting wet if caught outside in a rainstorm. Sue fell backwards, her back arching and her arms going wide, as half-a-dozen 9mm bullets smashed her face and tore her torso.

Tommy was trying to aim, but he was so busy coughing up blood from his punctured lung that he couldn't, and Chris was able to take her time with him, walking over, contemplating him for a second before reloading the MAC-10 (she had shot it empty; she couldn't believe how fast that thing ate bullets) and giving him the same treatment that she'd given Sue. She was a little shocked, but only a little, at how thoroughly chewed-up he looked…like he'd been torn by barracudas, she thought.

A noise behind her alerted her to Billy Nolan's existence. He was trying to aim a pistol at her, and did manage to squeeze off a shot, but he was shaking, and the pistol dropped from his hand. Chris reloaded her new toy and sprayed him down in his turn, leaving him shattered in a pool of blood.

With the Power Trio gone, Chris thought that she could relax. Then she saw someone new coming on the scene…someone she had discounted completely.


	21. Chapter 21 Checkmate

Battle Royale, Maine

Chapter 21

Checkmate

by Technomad

Carrie White

Carrie stepped out of the woods, hefting her Uzi. She smiled, or, to be more correct, she showed her teeth. The heavy submachinegun felt good in her arms.

Christine obviously couldn't believe her eyes. She had thought she had the game completely in the bag. For a few seconds, she just gaped, her mouth opening and closing like a beached fish. Chris looked like she'd been through Hell; most of her hair was burned off, her clothes were in tatters, and one eye was gone completely. Her blouse, or what was left of it, was soaked with blood, and there was more blood on her stylish slacks. She only had one shoe on, but didn't seem to notice it. Of course, Carrie knew that she wasn't looking too good herself, what with one side of her head being covered with a crude, improvised bandage, and blood all over her clothes. For a second, the irony of her being at least somewhat better-turned-out than the ever-immaculate Christine Hargensen tickled Carrie's sense of humor.

"Hi, Chris," Carrie said finally, to break the silence. "Long time no see! Seems like ages since we were in school together, doesn't it?" She shook her head sadly. "Ah, I remember those dear old days, back in school-when you were the biggest _shit_ in creation to me!" She levelled the Uzi and let fly from the hip with a burst on full automatic; the submachinegun bucked and chattered in her hands, spraying the open space with bullets. Several richochets whined past Carrie's remaining ear; she couldn't hear very well through the bandage she had improvised.

Chris, damn her, was not hurt. She had ducked behind some debris, and it looked like she had a submachine gun of some sort, too! When Carrie ran out of ammunition, Chris popped back up, and screamed: "You missed me, _bitch_! Here's a dose of your own damn medicine, you Bible-bashing looney!" With that, Chris aimed one-handed, and her gun snarled, sending bullets zinging all around where Carrie was; Carrie, no fool, had ducked down the second she saw that Chris was still alive and in the fight. Chris' bullets went wild, only a few even were close to Carrie's position.

Carrie smiled grimly to herself. The stupid sinning slut had obviously never fired a submachine gun before, and took most of her ideas about how to fire one from those stupid shows that she had seen on the "devil-box!" Carrie, on the other hand, had had enough practice to know pretty much what she could and could not do with her Uzi, and firing it one-handed was one of the things she couldn't do. She regretted having yielded to impulse and fired from the hip, but she had wanted to keep Chris off-balance, which she had done with room to spare.

Methodically, Carrie slotted a fresh magazine into her Uzi. She still had about five left, which she thought would be more than what she needed, particularly since she also still had several other guns and ammunition for them. Still and all, she trusted the Uzi; she and it had been through an awful lot together.

She looked up, just in time to see Chris Hargensen covering the last few yards between them at a dead run. She was running funny, but oh God, she was still fast! She'd always been athletic, and commonly won foot races among the girls in their gym class, fair and square. Now her speed was serving her well. She was on Carrie before Carrie could bring the Uzi to bear.

"Die, bitch!" At that range, even a tyro like Chris couldn't have missed. The little submachine gun chattered, and Carrie felt like she'd been slugged repeatedly in the torso and belly. With a howl, she crumpled, her improvised bandage coming loose and the place where her ear had been bleeding freely as the scabs that had formed tore free. Carrie squeezed her eyes nearly shut, forcing herself to play 'possum. The Uzi fell from her hands, and Chris kicked it out of reach. Chris crouched nearby, panting, watching Carrie carefully. Her eye rolled, and she was obviously fighting to stay conscious. "That's for _you_, bitch," she whispered, before straightening up and turning her back.

That had been just the opening Carrie had been waiting for. Her hand snaked under her bulletproof vest to where she had hidden that little derringer she had taken from one of her classmates—who was it? Did it matter? With Chris thinking she was dead or dying, she had lowered her guard, and she was impossible to miss, even with the tiny pistol. It made a huge noise, much bigger than Carrie had expected, and nearly flew out of her hand.

The big bullet it threw caught Chris in the middle of her back, and she fell forward with a high-pitched shriek of agony. She thrashed and struggled, trying to rise, but her legs didn't seem to be working. Shakily, Carrie got to her feet, and stood trembling, racked with pain in her middle. She spat blood, but only a little; she thought she had bitten her tongue or the inside of her mouth. The wound she had taken from Helen Shyres' sickle was bleeding again; she could feel the warm blood soaking her shoulder and side again. She stumbled forward, and got close enough to stamp on Chris' hand and take the submachine gun—a MAC-10, or so it said on the side—away from her.

Chris looked up at her, not believing what she saw. "How—how? I shot you!" Her remaining eye was hazed with pain, and her face was twisted in a grimace of agony.

Carrie grinned triumphantly, despite her own wounds. She unbuttoned her blouse, showing the grey bulletproof vest she had acquired. "A bulletproof vest, Chris. Never get caught up in the Program without one!"

Chris obviously couldn't believe what she was seeing. "You mean you got issued a vest? Those bastards!" She sounded honestly indignant. "That isn't fair!"

"I found Henry Blake dead, with it on. You know, I never did know what killed him," Carrie condescended to explain. "He didn't have any marks on him, and there wasn't any blood. Could he have had a heart attack?"

"Bastard—tried to rape me. Scumbag!" hissed Chris. "I'd found—some cyanide—in the clinic. Threw it in his face!" Then Chris put two and two together. "You mean—he was wearing that thing?"

Carrie squatted down, so that her face was right close to Chris. "Yes. If you'd searched him, you'd have had it, and the situation now would be reversed, wouldn't it?"

Chris' one eye went wide, and she started to curse. She cursed Carrie White, the entire Program, and her own slack overconfidence in detail. Carrie's eyes went wide. She had thought she knew all the "bad words," even though she knew that using them would get her mouth washed out with soap by Momma, but Chris was a real virtuoso.

When Chris ran down, she lay there, panting, giving Carrie a look like an animal caught in a trap. "Well? Are you going to make an end of this? It's just us now!"

Carrie retrieved her Uzi, and cradled it, thinking. Then she had an idea, and checked her watch. It was about 12:40, and they were just outside D-4…a sector which was scheduled to go off-limits at 1:00! Carrie suddenly had an incredible idea.

Slinging the Uzi, she grabbed Chris around the chest, heedless of Chris' howl of pain, and hoisted her up. She dragged Chris along, out of the open area, into the brush, into Sector D-4. Chris screamed and struggled, but didn't seem to understand what Carrie was doing. "Bitch! Oh, God, that hurts! That hurts! What the hell are you doing? Why don't you just fucking shoot me, bitch?"

Deep in D-4, but still in sight of where they had been, Carrie stopped, and dumped Chris into a thick patch of bush, making sure she was tangled up in it badly. Chris thrashed around, but with everything below her chest paralyzed, she couldn't easily get free.

Carrie stood back, admiring her handiwork. Now, for the final touch…"Chris, sweetie, you're now in Sector D-4. It's about 12:45. In fifteen minutes, D-4 goes off limits. If you can get yourself loose and crawl out, you won't get yourself blown up!" Turning to leave, Carrie called "Toodles, Chris! Have fun crawling back out if you can!"

Carrie walked back out of D-4, settling herself where she could see into that sector. She couldn't see Chris, but oh, could she ever hear her…even with one ear gone, she could hear her! Chris was obviously struggling to free herself, screaming "You bitch, Carrie White! You rotten, shit-eating bitch! Just you wait…I'll get loose and kill you! _I'll kill you_! _**Kill you!" **_

Carrie calmly watched the minute hand of the watch she'd been issued, noting how every second brought them closer to the magical hour of one in the afternoon. As time went on, Chris' screams became more frantic. "Help me! Please help me! You can't leave me to die like this!" _Oh, can't I,_ thought Carrie. Carrie thought, on the whole, that she could leave Chris to die like that very easily.

When it was just a couple of minutes before one, Carrie called out helpfully: "Just a couple of minutes more, Chris, sweetheart! You'd better hurry!"

This provoked an even louder scream. "Daddy! DADDY! _DADDY_! Save me! _Save me_!" Carrie could see Chris; she had gotten herself free of the bushes and was crawling over the ground, but with her legs useless, there was no way she'd get to the edge of D-4 in time. She was screaming for her father with every breath she took. Carrie shook her head. _No dignity, and she reverts to type at the end, doesn't she?_ Carrie hoped that if it had been her lot to fall in the Program, she'd at least have gone out with some poise and courage.

When Carrie's watch showed 1:00 PM straight up, she began to hear a strange beeping noise. It came from inside D-4, and when she looked carefully, she could see a small red light blinking on Chris' collar. Chris gave a hoarse, animal scream, and began tugging futilely at the collar in a hopeless attempt to free herself and save her life.

When Chris' collar exploded, it was much more violent than Carrie had anticipated. There was a sharp crack, louder than any gunshot, and Chris' head literally came off her shoulders in a fountain of blood. It rolled toward Carrie, and she could see that Chris' lower jaw had been torn off by the force of the explosion. The eyes were still rolling madly for a second, and Carrie smiled cruelly.

"Sucks to be you, Christine Hargensen, you sinning whore!" she sneered. Payback had come slowly, but oh, how sweet it was!

The loudspeakers crackled, and Miss Desjardin's voice echoed out: "And we have a winner! A dark horse champion of this year's Maine Battle Royale Program!"

END Chapter 21


	22. Chapter 22 Epilogue The Final Enemy

Battle Royale Maine

Chapter 22

Epilogue – The Final Enemy

August 1, 1975

The big black limousine with government license plates rolled into Chamberlain around four o'clock. The weather was fine and sunny, with a few fluffy white clouds rolling along through the deep blue sky. Chamberlain was quiet; most people were at work, or off somewhere enjoying the last weeks of summer. The car purred up to one end of Carlin Street, and stopped. A door in the back opened, and Carrie White got out.

She was wearing the same clothes she had been in when she had been shanghaied into the Program, and they hung loosely on her. Although she had been less battered than other Program winners, she had still had had to spend time in the hospital for internal injuries and the nasty cut that had cost her her ear, and she had lost weight while there. The hospital food had been better-balanced and healthier than what she ate at home, and even though she had eaten with good appetite, she had still come out in better shape than she had been when she had left her home last.

When she had reported in, everybody had been as nice as could be. Miss Desjardin had been all honey, cooing over her "remarkable victory" and praising her performance to the skies, even while ruing the fact that Carrie's win had cost her a sizable sum in lost bets. They had medevacked her to a hospital in Portland via helicopter; the first time she had ever flown.

As she walked along, she smiled slightly to herself. She wasn't the same Carrie White that had left this place, and she knew it. She felt better than she ever had in her whole life, despite the ache of her injuries and the twinges from the place where her ear had been. She felt more confident than she ever had before.

Of course, not everybody else could see the difference..."Hey, fart-face! Ol' prayin' Carrie!" It was a kid from the neighborhood, Johnny Erbter. He and his brother, Tommy, were two of the chief mischief-makers in the area, and had always been very fond of picking on Carrie.

She stopped and looked at him. "Are you talking to me, Johnny?"

"Yeah, I am! Whatcha think you can do about it, fart-face?"

_I don't have to put up with this any more, __do I__?_ Carrie smiled; it was not a nice smile. "Where do you think I've been, Johnny?"

Johnny screwed up his face, making himself even uglier than he naturally was. "I haven't seen you around in a while. I figured you were off prayin' – fart-face!"

_He sure seems to like calling me "fart-face,"__ doesn't he__?_ Carrie leaned forward a little, so that their faces were closer. "No. I was off in the _Program_ – the Battle Royale Program. You _have_ heard of that, haven't you?"

"Yeah, I know about it. We watch it every year. But you couldn't have been in that!" His ugly face lit up in what he thought was triumph. "Because everybody gets killed! You're alive! You couldn't have been playing in there..." Then it hit him. "Hey – only one survives at the end! My dad and uncles bet on who'll live! But you couldn't have..."

Carrie lifted her hair up on one side of her face, showing Johnny the stump of her ear and the ragged scars down one side of her neck left by Helen Shyres' desperate sickle-swing. She grinned a death's-head grin. "How do you think _that_ happened, Johnny? Do you think I cut myself shaving?"

Johnny was obnoxious, and a dedicated pain-in-the-ass to everybody older than he was. That did not make him stupid. He looked at the scar and the stump of Carrie's former ear, his eyes growing wider and wider, then leaped onto his bicycle and began pedaling away, faster and faster and faster. He turned for a terrified look back to see if she was chasing him or pulling a gun, and nearly got himself run over by a car. Even though the car missed him, he had to swerve hard enough that he fell off his bike, and his wails echoed down Carlin Street.

Carrie smiled a small triumphant smile. That had been a foretaste of the life that lay ahead. However, the road to that led through a certain small, white bungalow on Carlin Street. She started to walk, heading down the same sidewalk she had walked a million times before. Heading home.

The front door was unlocked; this was Chamberlain, Maine, not a large city, and very few people routinely locked up. That had sometimes helped the local hood squad when they wanted to go stealing, but even so, that hadn't changed. In any case, the Whites had very little that anybody would want to steal, and most people knew it. Carrie let herself in, looking around the familiar rooms.

Nothing had changed here. The huge plaster crucifix that Momma had ordered from a religious-supplies house was still on the wall, the agonized, bleeding body of Jesus nailed to it. There had been a time when that crucifix had terrified a younger Carrie White; she had suffered endless nightmares where that mad-eyed Christ came down off the cross, chasing her through the house, demanding that she take up her cross and follow Him. Now, she could look at it with a critical, knowing eye.

_He doesn't look as bad as some of the people I took out on Matinicus...with those wounds, if he got loose, and got a weapon, he could get up on the scoreboard, and have a chance of winning._ She turned her back on the crucifix, went on into the kitchen, and got the makings to put together a pot of tea. She fixed it the way she liked it, black and sweet, with a layer of sugar at the bottom, and sipped it meditatively. Even though the hospital's tea had been good, there was nothing like making things the way she wanted them. _And that's how it'll be from now on out! There's been some changes_!

Of course, some people hadn't heard the news...the door opened, and Momma came in. She hadn't been told that Carrie was coming home; they generally didn't make much of an announcement of a victor's homecoming. Momma was in a bad mood; that meant that she was her usual self. She was muttering "...told that Elt a thing or two down at the laundry...God's got a special blue corner of hell all set up for him..." Then she saw Carrie.

"You're back."

Carrie gave her back stare for stare. No more dropping her eyes when Momma glared..."Yes, I'm back. Didn't they tell you that I'd won the Program?"

"You were out on that island with boys. The only way you could have won would have been to let those – _boys_ – have their way with you." Momma's face twisted in one of her insane rages. "You sinning harlot! You Jezebel!" She drew back one meaty arm for a powerhouse swing across Carrie's face.

Carrie grabbed Momma's arm, pulling and twisting in a way one of the policewomen who had been guarding her in the hospital had shown her. There was a loud crack, and Momma screamed even louder than when she was angry. She staggered back, her arm dangling uselessly at her side, her face going pale beneath its tan. "Sinner! Judas! Apostate! How dare you hurt _me_?"

"How dare I hurt you, Momma?" Carrie's mouth twisted into an evil grin. "You hymn-singing lunatic, how dare _you_ ask me such a question? You idiot, you tried to swing on a _Battle Royale Program winner_! You're lucky I let you live!" Luckier than she knew...

Momma stared at Carrie, her mouth twisting and her face twitching. Carrie could see that she was working her way up to a real good rage. There was a time when that would have terrified her; Momma, in the grip of one of her furies, was capable of nearly anything. Now, after Matinicus, Momma's antics only amused Carrie.

"How do you think I won, Momma?" asked Carrie softly. Carrie couldn't see her own smile, but it felt wonderfully predatory. There were no mirrors in the White house outside of the bathroom. Momma thought that mirrors led to vanity, and vanity, like so many, many other things, was a sin. "Do you really think that I let some boy 'have his way' with me?" Carrie shook her head sadly. "Are you really that stupid, or that obsessive?"

"You harlot! You – you Whore of Babylon!" Momma shrieked the last words loud enough that Carrie privately thought that the town fire siren would have been given a good run for its money, had it turned on then. Carrie could have predicted what Momma would say, with a fair chance of accuracy; years of observation, and Momma's one-track mind, made it easy.

"I remember what the neighbor lady said about you, back when I was three...before the stones came. Remember?" Carrie leered. "She said you were a dirty old woman with a can of worms for a mind. She was exactly right. She had a pretty good way with words, didn't she?" Momma gaped, unable to believe her ears, as Carrie went on, meditatively: "There's only one way out of the Program, once you're in it, Momma. The only way out – and the way I took – is to kill your enemies. And that's just what I did."

Momma stared at Carrie. "Go to your closet. Go to your closet and pray for the children you killed..." she finally managed to whisper. "You're a murderer! A murderer!"

"Oh, no, I'm not, Momma," Carrie answered. "Killing in self-defense, or when you're forced to, isn't murder, and neither is killing in the Program. Murder is unlawful killing, Momma, and the Program's _legal_...legal as church on Sunday!" Carrie reached down the front of her blouse. "And I'm _not_ going to the closet. _Not any more. _Not ever again."

When Carrie's hand came out of her blouse, she was holding the derringer. It was cocked, and she pointed it at her mother. "You never did think very clearly, did you, Momma?" Carrie asked, her voice almost sad. "If you really think I'm a murderer...what makes you think that _getting in my face_ is a good idea?"

Momma screamed, and lunged at Carrie. The derringer's report was very loud in that confined space, and Momma reeled backward, the back of her head missing and a nasty hole blown right between her eyes. Carrie nodded. .45 Colt hollow-point worked very well.

Carrie stared down at her mother's body, not feeling even a tiny bit of sorrow; years and years of Momma's mistreatment had burned any love she had ever felt for the woman clean out of Carrie's soul. She put the derringer back in her bra once she was sure that Momma was dead. She could see Momma's brains, splattered over the linoleum floor behind her, and she could tell by the smell that Momma's bowels and bladder had cut loose, just like people had done on Matinicus when they were dead.

"You didn't listen, Momma," Carrie said, her voice loud in the sudden stillness. "I won the Program...by _killing all my enemies_. Now _all my enemies_ are dead."

Paying the cooling corpse of Margaret White no further mind, Carrie turned and went to her room. She collected her few pitiful keepsakes, looked around the bleak little chamber one last time, and shut the door, not looking back. Once she was out on the front porch, Carrie locked the door and walked down the walk to where the government limousine was waiting for her. She got in, and the car pulled away, taking her to her new life in Portland.

THE END

(_Author's note: I don't own _Carrie_ or _Battle Royale_; I am not Stephen King or Koushun Takami. I would like to beg the forgiveness of the residents of Matinicus Island, Maine, for any inadvertent distortions or deliberate destruction I inflicted on their lovely island home; one day I hope to visit it and see for myself how much I got right and how much I got wrong. I did all the research I could, but being well over a thousand miles away and in a small town made it much more difficult, even with the Internet. I would also like to thank my readers, and beg that you review and give me feedback on this story.)_


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